I think the table at the end of the article is more so.
- Worldwide sales -10% YoY
- China sales -26% YoY
And when you cross compare Porsche saying they sold more EV powertrains than their gas equivalents against China's new found foothold as the market leader in consumer electric cars (BYD, NIO, Xiaomi, etc...)
Then I think you see an early indication not just of electric car dominance, but of the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
> Then I think you see an early indication not just of electric car dominance, but of the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
It’s done man. Americans are stuck in ICE engines because they’ve been told they’re “car enthusiasts” while the Chinese have been developing EV technology for years. Meanwhile, European makers are stuck not knowing what to do, make Americans happy or compete with the Chinese. The result: nothing has been done properly. And let’s be real, “car enthusiasts” are going to disappear in one or two generations. Practicality beats enthusiasm for 95% of car use.
Perhaps people in the future will visit the US for the dieselpunk nostalgia, the same way people like seeing classic cars in Cuba.
I strongly doubt any current car will stand longevity of those cars. The maintenance entry cost of anything with integrated electronic is just several order of magnitude in complexity.
Modern cars are far more reliable than old 'analogue' cars - primarily because of the integrated electronics. ECUs can detect when engines are running rich or lean, knocking or 100 other edge cases and adjust accordingly.
Switch to an EV and it's even simpler, you can get away with a motor, battery, BMS and inverter and you can get just about any soapbox to move.
Reliable is only slightly related to be maintenable.
ECU embedding makes the whole system more complexe. That is not necessary absolutely a bad thing, but the trade-off is different. And there is on top of that a different topic which is how electronics are used to enforce obsolescence and make harder to maintain the vehicle without special equipment of the specific firm. This can also be enforced with more analogical stuffs of course, but electronic devices are more likely to be used this way.
> Modern cars are far more reliable than old 'analogue' cars
They're reliable, but when they have a problem, they're too hard to fix.
Last time I got my Toyota Hybrid fixed, the recommended first step for the fault code was to "replace the ECU". Expensive. Fault was elsewhere but I had to suck up that cost. I've just scrapped that car for a different fault, because although the new fault was easily fixable, the parts and labour were very expensive (and wouldn't make the car more reliable).
Cars have become terribly unreliable in the last 5 years. Electronics that are too tightly integrated, silly displacement on demand setups, quality issues from COVID times, unrelialble small engines with turbochargers, and even Toyota/GM are having massive engine failure issues. And some manufacturers have record amounts of recalls.
I am not so sure that modern cars are more reliable.
My father has used a traditional (European) car (which had no electronics except the rectifier diode bridge for the alternator) for 35 years (1973-2008), during which the car has been used every day for commuting to his job (an almost 2-hour round trip in a city with very crowded traffic) and during vacations it was used mainly on difficult mountain roads. He stopped using the car when he was too old, not because the car became unusable.
The car has been repaired from time to time, but almost all the repairs were done by my father himself, alone and in a short time (he had the service manuals for that car, but he was not any kind of mechanic by profession, he was a physicist). In the very few cases when the car was taken to a repair shop, that was for replacing some rusted parts of the car body, and once for machining the cylinder block, after several hundred thousand miles.
And this was not some unusually good car, many others were like this, if their owners took good care of them.
I doubt that a Tesla would live that long, in similar conditions, though it would have the advantage that the owner would not have to be skilled in using his hands in order to avoid to waste time and money for minor repairs, like with that "analog" car.
> Modern cars are far more reliable than old 'analogue' cars ...
Define "modern". My 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera is now 38 years old (and I own it since 1999, it used to be my daily back in the day). It's considered one of the most reliable car ever built. Mine is sure still running strong and, well, we have to wait until year 2064 (I'll be long gone I guess) to see if any modern car proves as reliable.
Also: there are still Porsche 356 from the 1950s on the road. They do rust a lot (body had no treatment against rust back then) but many are still in working condition. Mechanic and bodyshops know how to keep these on the road. If after 38 years my 911 Carrera is still on the road, I'm sure the knowledge is out there to keep it on the road for another 38 years.
Do we know if all these Chinese cars sold today, say in the EU, shall still be usable in 38 years? What about the batteries? Shall there be compatible ones? Batteries that fail every x years and needs replacement is already quite a stretch from a "reliability" point of view compared to a 38 years cars whose engine has never been opened.
Thing is: my 911 is mostly analog except for the electronic fuel injection. A good old Bosch part.
Funnily enough that part is a typical part that fails. That and all the little sensors (but thankfully there aren't too many). But they're easy fix.
I think there's that sweet spot where cars were still simple enough and yet had already electronic fuel injection: that made for some extremely reliable cars.
Note that I don't use it as a daily car anymore: I now drive maybe only about 1000 miles / 1500 km a year with my old Porsche. But I totally could use it everyday: the reason I don't is not reliability, it's that an old Porsche from the 80s is a real gas guzzler (not as much as an american V8 from the 80s but still a gas guzzler). One of my favorite thing is the relatively short drive to go pick my kid at school then go groceries shopping. Every time I use I'm thinking "it's crazy to think it could be my daily".
And when my regular car has to go to the garage/maintenance, the good old trusty 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera gets to be a daily for a while.
38 years old.
My modern car has sensors for everything. It's very convenient to know what is the problem, but there are still problems. In seven years it's been something like seven times to the garage (in addition to maintenance / tires) for a variety of problems. Under warranty but still.
Regardless of who's right, you are aware that this is anecdata and survival biais right? Your experience with 2 single cars is not representative of how many years cars survive in average.
There is a point there: I can buy sheet metal and a welder at home depot and repair rust in a 1950s car (if I was really doing this I'd get better metals and a better welder, but the home depot stuff will work). If the CPU on my modern car breaks I can't fix it - worse, the computer industry has a long track record of stopping production on older chips and so there is a good chance the part I need won't be available at any price. (there are a few labs that can make a one-off chip - but they start at $60,000 each and that assumes you have all the designs ready)
Regardless of that, what most people are after is TCO.
Something tells me, and not only me, that longevity and ease of repair of these electrical gadgets are nowhere near old ICE car we all know very well. Is it direct experience with same type of cars across several decades? Nope, but experience with electronics in general, powered by similar batteries in general and its not looking good. More electronics = more failure surface.
> Define "modern". My 1988 ...
Lots of cars in 1988 still had 5 digit odometers because most of them weren't expected to ever need a 6th. Nowadays with some companies you can get almost that far and still be under warranty.
It's a pity that diesel-gate happened, and that they weren't able to solve the emissions problem.
I came across a post about a diesel tractor with no electrical parts and imagined the value of a post-apocalyptical car that could withstand EMPs and run on virtually any fuel type. Limited market obviously, make it configurable like a diesel Slate truck and baby you've got a stew going!
Not really. I’d agree 10 years ago, but post-COVID ICE r&d budgets have been slashed and we’re now in the enshittification phase. My brother in law is a mechanic. He’s doing like 5x more engine a transmission replacements than he did 10 years ago.
When your ICE vehicle breaks down on the highway, you can get it towed and repaired at any half-decent car mechanic. If you don't like his cost quote or his service/repairs, you can get your car taken elsewhere (usually the mechanic can get it running in a short while, unless it is a major breakage problem) for a second opinion or service/repairs.
When your EV breaks down, you won't even bother to get it towed, because the only ones who can repair it are the (very expensive) showroom of the car manufacturer you bought it from, or their authorized (and very expensive) service center (and those will be very few of them in a city, and forget about getting such EV Service centers in the suburbs or rural areas). And you have to accept whatever cost quote and dependencies (additional upgrades to "fix" the "issue") he specifies. Good luck trying to figure it out or getting a second opinion, unless you have an EV industry expert as a friend or family member.
The EVs are white elephants. They look good while they last. But once they start breaking down, you will be paying through your nose just to keep it ticking along.
Whereas that 30-years old ICE car of your grandpa? That rustbucket can be repaired (eventually to full functionality and best looks) in your home garage by you and family/friends if you have the knowhow (or want to learn it), and can afford the time and spare parts cost (which are affordable for middle class, except if it is a vintage car or sports/luxury car).
EVs will be the deathknell for the hobbyist market and small-scale auto shops.
And don't even get me started on how easily and dangerously EVs can be hacked/hijacked by hackers.
That has nothing to to with EVs per se, as many modern ICE cars are just as impossible to repair for non-affiliated repair shops. And some EVs, e.g. the Nissan Leaf, are quite easy to work on for independent shops.
Except for the electronic subsystem, almost everything else in an ICE car can be repaired by a competent non-dealer mechanic shop.
I do agree though that modern ICE vehicles are becoming more and more complex, with electronic subsystems replacing manual subsystems, so non-dealer mechanics may struggle with such complex work and may even reject the work saying it's out of their ambit. This situation is getting aggravated as car manufacturers are pushing for hybrids, which have the partial advantages & disadvantages of both ICE & EV worlds.
But for any EV (including the Nissan Leaf), repairs & advanced diagnostics on the electric-drive components
(which is basically the main component of the EV), health checks on the battery (other main component), or repairs involving high-voltage systems, are typically out of the competency and ambit of a non-dealer mechanic, unless the mechanic shop is a dealer-certified EV-trained service center.
However, the routine mechanical work — things like brakes, suspension (e.g., sway bar links, shocks), tires, wheel alignment, cabin filters, etc. — can generally be done safely and correctly by a good independent mechanic, whether it be for an ICE vehicle or an EV.
> When your EV breaks down, you won't even bother to get it towed, because the only ones who can repair are the (very expensive) showroom of the car manufacturer you bought it from, or their authorized (and very expensive) service center
That's true, but it is has more to do with parasitic capitalism than EV technology, and could (and hopefully will）be solved with regulation. My understanding is that there is already significant regulation around ICE car parts which is the main reason why the situation there is better.
Regulation will do nothing because it is not meant to tackle such problems.
EV is basically a battery-powered motor on wheels.
The smartphone in your hands is a battery-powered communication device with a touchscreen.
If your smartphone doesn't work, can you take it to any phone repair shop and get it repaired for anything other than a battery replacement or screen replacement (or if the service center guy is technically competent, then maybe replacing the charging port if it is busted).
EU, India and few countries have enacted the Right to Repair law.
But if your smartphone is broken, your options to get it repaired are minimal, because its manufacturers have gone to extreme lengths to ensure that such devices are not easy to open (let alone repair).
Now extrapolate that Smartphone Repair problem 10x-100x, and you have the EV Repair problem.
EVs are DESIGNED and MANUFACTURED to be extremely difficult to repair even by excellent technicians and software experts.
EVs are the Razor Blade Theory in moving attractive action.
(Razor Blade Theory is basically a selling cheat but perfectly legal one; they sell you a razor blade with special handle/holder cheaply, but you have to keep buying razor blades from same brand (e.g., Gilette) & model that only work with that specific type of handle/holder. Over a period of time, the manufacturer will keep increasing the cost of the razor blades, because they know they have locked in the customers who have become accustomed to that type of handle/holder, blade quality & comfort, design, etc.)
You can buy an EV for an expensive upfront cost (it is sold as a premium (> ICE car) segment; just like smartphone brands have a premium price-tier segment), but running and repair costs is where the customers will be fleeced.. hard.
And please note that running cost (wear & tear) of an EV will not be covered by car insurance, so if your EV breaks down on the road, and you get it towed for repair, then the showroom/service-center (who usually have a tie-up and nexus with car insurance vendors) and insurance vendor will simply say the repairs won't be covered under extended warranty or insurance as it is normal "wear and tear".
And you'll have to swallow all those lies at face value, because you cannot even go elsewhere for a second opinion (because an EV of one brand, cannot be repaired at service center or showroom of another; if you go to another service center of same brand, they will cite you the same lies because that's their revenue model (Razor Blade Theory)).
EVs are a losing proposition for humanity, because unfortunately, even the supposedly green (not affecting climate change) EVs have toxic waste (typically the chemical batteries and plastics) that are never safely disposed off in climate-friendly ways.
ICE vehicles have some of these same problems, but their biggest advantages are their long mileage (per full tank of fuel), easier operation (not driving, I mean it is easy to top/fill up the fuel), easy maintenance (affordable repair options), and all-round viability that can even last a century with the right care.
However, you can bet that EVs are being designed for planned obsolescence, and that's a shame since humanity indeed needs some viable alternative to fossil-fuel-guzzling climate-polluting ICE vehicles.
Regulation has everything to do with this.
> EVs are DESIGNED and MANUFACTURED to be extremely difficult to repair even by excellent technicians and software experts.
Correct. So we should pass regulation that makes this illegal (or otherwise prohibitively expensive for manufacturers due to legal responsilities which would be difficult to fulfil with such a design). We know that repairable EVs are entirely possible.
The same applies to smartphones and whole bunch of other hardware from washing machine to tractors, and is the basis of the "right to repair" movement.
If 40+ years of mobile phones have not solved such problems through regulations, I am afraid they won't be solved for EVs either.
Furthermore, once EVs become mainstream across the world, it will be China controlling the world [since batteries and chips & ICs (integrated circuits) need Lithium, Rare Earth Metals, etc., but China has the monopoly on them (especially on Rare Earths processing)].
That's why China is doing its best to dominate EV market (as hinted in the above linked article), because it knows no nation can dethrone it for the basic essentials of any EV.
It would be a bad idea for the world to be beholden to a single country for anything. Oh wait, the world is already beholden to China for most of the manufacturing. LOL.
We are doomed.
> If 40+ years of mobile phones have not solved such problems through regulations, I am afraid they won't be solved for EVs either.
I don't think that follows. Nobody has even attempted to solve these problems for mobile phones. And the main reason for that is that it's a pretty new problem. Appliances 40 or 50 years ago were much simpler and typically quite repairable. It's only the recently that a focus on manufacturing efficiency and profitability have led to these kind of problems.
This definitely isn't true. This was measured by Consumer Reports and Toyota hybrids were the most reliable power trains.
This is likely due to experience, regardless, it's the reality.
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What? How so? Isn't it just a bunch of PCBs and sensors whereas gas powered cars are a bunch of awesome nonesense you can gently whack against each other to create different notes and tones?
The former requires a special printer while the latter requires tons of machines for precision engineering and the industrial equivalent of smitheries and blacksmiths!
Ever tried working on a new car versus fixing a pre 1980’s car?
Damned if I have any idea what anything is or what to do on a new one. I had a moderate chance of diagnosing and fixing my old Triunph.
If you have the right tools then it's easier than ever.
To put a different spin, a friend's father was a very successful auto mechanic. What he loved about it was the mental challenge of diagnostics. The stranger the problem, the better for him.
A few years back he sold his shop. There were two reasons:
1) He made f** you money, and retired decades earlier than he'd expected.
2) For many years he'd felt like the daily intellectual challenge was gone.
His repeated refrain was that modern self-diagnostic systems were good
enough that it took away most of the day-to-day intellectual challenge.
Identifying which assemblies to replace is easier than ever.
But there are an ever increasing number of assemblies with a "non starter to anyone other than the OEM" up front manufacturing set up cost. And when the OEM drops support......
Until the computer dies and you can't get the replacement part.
Well there’s the drm
Ain't gonna be any diesel in the future. Peak oil has passed, now it's only going downhill.
Feels bad faith to shit on people from your ivory tower, just because they can't afford to ditch their reliable beaters and buy a new car. Have you seen wage growth vs car price increases lately? Not everyone is on a remote six figure US tech job. Try to view and judge things from outside your bubble as well.
I'd also dump my ol reliable ICE car that's now probably worth less than a fancy electric bicycle, if someone just gave me an EV for free ;)
But since I'm poor and can't afford EV prices with decent range, nor can I afford a home with a parking place with charger, then ICE it is. European here btw, not american.
Same here. Living in the Netherlands, I drive a 2008 Daihatsu Cuore, bought for 850E over a year ago, I pay 17E /month in mrb (road tax) and 38E/month insurance. It's basically close to the costs of a scooter. And I average under 4L/100km fuel usage, for my 200km/week commute. I did some calculation and no car comes close to these running costs. Definitely no electric cars, even if I were to get them for free, because road tax here is mainly a factor of weight.
Even a Dacia Spring with its 900kg is slightly more expensive overall to run (in my circumstances. I could charge at home, but don't have solar panels atm), and a lot more expensive up front to buy (used).
It has over 304k km already, and it runs perfectly well with some occasional maintenance and some mechanical sympathy, but I was considering alternatives in case something were to happen. Conclusion? Just buy another one. Suzuki Celerio is the only one in the same ballpark, but it's about 2k EUR more expensive. And I love my Daihatsu.
It wouldn’t change your equation much, but you don’t need a car charger as such, just connect to a normal power socket (which may not be available within reach).
We ran a Leaf for years like that, and it would charge overnight just fine.
We do have a charger now and it’s quicker, but it’s a luxury we didn’t need.
>. Living in the Netherlands, I drive a 2008 Daihatsu Cuore, bought for 850E over a year ago, I pay 17E /month in mrb (road tax) and 38E/month insurance.
Imagine how many people are reading this and thinking to themselves "government has to do something to drive up those numbers so it's no longer financially sensible for you to drive that car"
Well, fuel here is close to if not the most expensive in EU. That also contains a lot of tax. But I just don't drive that much.
And the insurance is cheap because of years of no incidents, and the fact that I'm over 30. But indeed, I wouldn't disagree if the government made electric cars cheaper from a tax perspective. They just reduced the tax discount to 25%, and it will be gone completely in a few years.
If they raise taxes significantly for me, I'll just sell the car and find a closer job. 20km one way to Amsterdam with an ebike, that's 2 hours per day. I don't have that much time to give away at this point in life.
Like me, you're not buying new cars on that budget anyway.
6 years ago when my ICE car became unreliable I bought a used Chevy Bolt for less than $20k. They're closer to $10k now. Plenty of range.
People aren't being asked to dump their current reliable vehicles.
What we want is for people to think about EVs when it's time to replace them.
> People aren't being asked to dump their current reliable vehicles
Depends on where the people live. In France, that's just about what they're asked. If their car is "too old" (reliability doesn't matter, only age), they may no longer drive in Paris and some other major cities on weekdays from 6 AM to 8 PM or something like that.
I have an ICE car and I agree with restrictions like that. You don't need to be Jeff Bezos to own a car that's at least Euro 5 and doesn't heavily pollute the air. If you own some 20+ year old beater that smokes like a chimney, get fined, we don't have to tolerate your health hazard mobile.
Look at the average car payment in the US, and the average car sale price
The ”americans can’t afford EVs” argument falls totally apart when the average(!) sale price is over $50k and you can get a perfectly good Leaf for $25k
You need to compare apples to apples in that 50k sale price. People are not buying Versas that are 50k
Good point but that can be explained by familiarity inertia. People who have 50k to blow on a new car are anything but young buyers, with the average age of a new car buyer in the US is around 53 years old.
And boomers and gen-X are used to owning ICEs, so there you go.
Millennials and Zoomers would be more open to EV adoption but they have a lot less disposable income to buy new cars.
Meanwhile, bicycles and e-bikes cost a fraction of a car.
Not sure if you are familiar with the built-environment in America, but there’s effectively no biking infrastructure and people are openly hostile towards cyclists who try.
Depends on where you live. There are a lot of cities in North America that have biking infrastructure. As a general rule, the worse the winters the better the biking infrastructure. (you need to get to Minneapolis or Canada to see it)
There's a lot of bike accidents in my city in Europe too. Yearly deaths too. Still only commute by bike if the trip is through the city center since it's the only way to bypass city traffic and without dying of old age from waiting on public transport.
Same here in New Zealand.
Around town a bike is quicker and you learn to adapt to the danger. I about 1000k per month.
The main issues for me are small load capacity and whether or not there is a shower at the destination.
Barely any bike infrastructure where I live, either. You can make it work. Give it a try someday.
How do you suggest you get to work by bike when work is 50 km away?
Moving closer. It is a shitty commute by any means of transport.
It is no wonder that you are jumping at everybody offering suggestions.
I'd love to but would rather not be road splatter, which is a frequent outcome:
If you ever get the chance to try a bike radar like the garmin Varia, knowing what’s behind you is a game changer.
I feel naked on the rare occasion I don’t have it.
We've been overtaken by minibikes and ATVs on the roads, it's weird.
>e-bikes cost a fraction of a car.
Don't worry, there are people scheming up ways to change that. And it's (mostly) not even the auto lobby.
Yes, and? They're different tools for different purposes. Such a disingenuous comment.
> They're different tools for different purposes.
Getting to work and running local errands?
Yes one is for getting to work and running local errands, the other is for showing that you are a successful alpha hustler who can afford a big truck.
What a childish troll comment.
Not everyone's work commute can be done by bicycle. I can't cycle 40+ km each way on the highway.
And not everyone who buys a car to get to work buys a pickup truck. Sensible cars exist. Ignoramus.
ANother disingenuous comment.
One for commuting long distances versus one for commuting short distance. ignoramus
Disingenuous? Plenty of people live without a car.
By choice?
Life is short enough, I don’t need to waste it providing power to travel to work and back when I can save 1.5 hours per work day driving. (And more if I go to lunch.)
> I can save 1.5 hours per work day driving. (And more if I go to lunch.)
That’s going to depend where you live. Commuting by bike is half to one third the time it takes to drive for my commute.
One work location is 8km away, the other is 15km.
Yes, plenty of people choose active transportation. Once they give it a try they see that not only it is about as fast as driving, but it feels great, too.
I don't know your particular circumstances, but unless you have tried riding a bike to work you probably don't have a good sense of how long it would take you.
Many people realize that they'd rather spend an hour biking every day instead of half an hour driving each day, because they enjoy riding a bike. "Providing power to travel" is such a weird way to describe using your own body and enjoying the outdoors
>Disingenuous?
Yes, it's disingenuous to insinuate through that comparison as if bicycles are replacements for cars, or that all car trips can be replaced by bike trips. Both are good for different kinds of trips. Hence why cars still have a place, even in bike dominated Netherlands, and why your comment was in bad faith and why Ic alled you out for it.
>Plenty of people live without a car.
Plenty of people also live without a home, that doesn't mean it's a good situation to be in.
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I don't think being used to buying ICE cars is an excuse. Or probably even true.
More likely they stay popular because America has extremely cheap petrol/gas and poor electric car charging infrastructure.
I don't know what you mean by reliable beaters. By the time EVs are mandatory, my ICE car will have turned into dust and I'd have to buy a new car anyway. It would be pretty foolish to stall EVs only to then be forced to buy another ICE car.
Sorry but where did I do that? I oppose tariffs on Chinese cars, which means I support making cars cheaper…
Yes, not to mention the fact that Chinese EVs can't be sold here... protectionism for weak American companies that can't compete globally. We've gone from an automotive superpower and the land of Henry Ford to the government propping up automakers and depriving Americans of free choice. If Chinese cars would actually be allowed to sold here they would sell like Toyota Camrys.
Until very recently, tariffs on American cars sold in China were much higher than vice-versa. The new US tariffs were an attempt to even the playing field.
I think most people would agree that no tariffs would be good, but China is more protectionist than any other major economy, including recent changes in US policy.
Yes, but China has always been straightforward in that they believe in protectionism. It's part of their system.
In contrast, in the West (at least until a few years ago), we have been fed the discourse that free market without protectionism is the best model, and protectionist countries are sabotaging themselves. And I don't know how it was in the US, but in the EU this caused hardship to many people. Entire countries pretty much sacrificed whole industries to the free market gods, because it was more efficient to bring the merchandise from elsewhere. Opponents who were defending their livelihood were framed as reactionaries that were opposing +X% GDP gains or didn't want "free competition" (often against products with unbeatable prices due to being made in countries with totally different rules and labor standards).
Now it seems that the system that supposedly was so bad gives an unfair advantage, so if others apply it the only defense is to apply it as well... but the free market apologists won't shut up anyway, in spite of the obvious cognitive dissonance.
Don’t forget the new use for tariffs. To force your allies to allow you to annex their territory.
There has long been a strong undercurrent of people who are for protectionism. Remember Ross Perot (many reading this were not even born in 1992 when he got popular as a third party presidential candidate) and his Giant sucking sound?
there are many people in America who don't believe in protectionism, but we lost this time.
True enough but really this boils down to we are just doing what they are doing. The reason they had it higher for longer was because for longer the situation was reversed, our cars were better. Now they have surpassed us and don't really need protection. We didn't before either, so it was a moot point. Now we do, so we do the same thing.
The point however is that the United States is supposed to operate under a different model than China. The reason to bring up the ways we act the same is then to find clarity in the contradiction.
This is essentially the same tension that runs through much of modern American discourse. It's never welfare if the beneficiary is a rich CEO at a corporation, only if it's a family in poverty. It's not like Chinese cars can't employ American workers just as Japanese and other foreign automakers do.
To my mind then, I think it's less about reciprocity and more about corporate welfare. Putting aside ICE automakers, there is also a very obvious individual who turned conspicuously political as of late who owes a great deal of his fortune to the expectation that his electric car company will one day rule the world. It would be quite embarrassing for even him if demand for his vehicles suddenly got demolished on his own turf. I would think he and others would be willing to spend a small fortune to keep the political needle tipped in their favor on this issue, the average consumer be damned.
At some level there is nothing wrong with such naked self interest. I just prefer we be honest about it, as only then can we really analyze it.
> The point however is that the United States is supposed to operate under a different model than China.
Does it mean we shouldn't have borders and a military because China has them?
Same applies to tariffs.
> but China is more protectionist than any other major economy, including recent changes in US policy.
Not true. China let Tesla set up shop in the backyard of their domestic EV industry, WITHOUT the mandatory by law 51% Chinese ownership, precisely so Tesla would light a fire under the asses of domestic players, forcing them to compete better with what was at the time, the pinnacle EV brand.
China is no longer beating us with protectionism but with innovation and manufacturing. People better wake up.
> so Tesla would light a fire under the asses of domestic players, forcing them to compete better with what was at the time, the pinnacle EV brand.
More like having Tesla to bootstrap the upstream suppliers so local brands can leverage them.
Which was a good strategy. It's not that far from older "Detroit strategies" that led to Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, and GM all competing for "world leader" from "The Motor City" in a past century.
If anything the shame is not that the Chinese pulled this off successfully, but that Detroit is still barely trying to compete in streamlining their bloated supply chains in light of EV competition; none of the US automakers are sharing upstream suppliers on batteries and all are scrambling in different directions on even some of the basics.
Yep, it’s amazing how much knowledge and capability a country can develop when it has most of the worlds manufacturing.
They say history repeats itself, and this EV market shift is a repeat. A remarkable past parallel occurred with US industrial quality experts and statisticians being ignored by the US auto industry in the 1970s, then being taken seriously by the Japanese auto makers who then sling shotted themselves past US auto quality in the 80s to probably 2010ish?
In this round of history repeating, 2020s US car maker management was also actively anti-collaboration and anti-expert within it's own domain. You can see commentary by Sandy Munro on US companies ignoring design and production efficiency details - outsourcing too much of their own supply chain, and being resistant to integration improvements. And similar occurrences of Chinese auto companies hiring US auto production experts who were being ignored by the US auto industry, then going on to to improve fit, finish and quality, while building organizations unafraid of vertical integration.
All that tracks with my observations.
Why not both.
Protectionism that works to bolster inovation.
TSMC didn't become the world's supreme chipmaker by a laissez-faire aproach from Taiwan.
Same applies to Samsung. And oh-so-many Japanese tech ventures.
And all of them were a product of American geopolitics and tech collaboration.
Let's not pretend high tech was ever not a result of government-assisted efforts, subsidies, tarrifs, export controls, and geopolitical games.
>TSMC didn't become the world's supreme chipmaker by a laissez-faire aproach from Taiwan.
>Same applies to Samsung. And oh-so-many Japanese tech ventures.
You're missing a lot of context with these analogies. TSMC and Samsung started off in the 1950-1980s as cheap manufacturers of low margin electronic commodities the west was actively trying to get rid of in the name of protecting the environment(semi industry is poisonous) and increasing shareholder value via cheap(cough, slave, cough) labour, while giving western consumers who had options of better paid jobs access to cheaper imported stuff. It was a win-win-win situation, kind-of.
But fast forward to today, now that TSMC and Samsung have become masters of cutting edge high margin manufacturing, and the west finds itself exposed to lack of said cutting edge manufacturing at home, they're starting to twist their arms to get the know-how and infrastructure that they missed out on back on-shore. Had the west know the table would turn like this they probably would have acted differently.
Same with cars. German OEMs like Mercedes that were the pinnacle of auto tech especially when it came to tings like safety and self driving/crash avoidance, but got greedy and were more than happy to outsource electronics and ECU development and manufacturing to the lowest bidder in the name of shareholder value, but over time they lost vertical integration and access to inhouse critical high end technologies that made them valuable over the competition. Now China used that outsourced electronics industry to develop its own electronic auto tech and its vertical integration supply chain to beat the Germans.
The highest margin item in an ICE car was always the engine at which the Germans were the best at, and China could not catch up. Fast forward to today, in an EV, the highest margin items are the battery, self driving stack and supporting AI silicon, almost none of which come from Europe, meaning German OEMs are losing out on innovations and profits big time, becoming only system integrators of US and Chinese sourced parts on top of which they slap a badge hoping the consumers will value it more than Chinese badges because "heritage and tradition". They are super fucked.
What are you talking about? GM sold more cars in China until very recently when Chinese buyers started flocking to EVs.
> The new US tariffs were an attempt to even the playing field.
That's a guess at the White House's thinking. They've been using every form of coercion in international relations, including economic (tariffs), military, and diplomatic. That's a factual basis for divining their reasoning.
Their words are not a factual basis - they can say anything and clearly will. Everyone who does those things provides justifications - Putin was helping oppressed Russians in Ukraine and stopping fascism, for example. Taking them at face value is not a serious analysis.
Interesting that Canada agreed to break with the US on EV tariffs.
It's limited but I feel like Canada aligning themselves at all with China over the US is an interesting development.
It's a good point but imo not really surprising when the President of the United States essentially threatened to invade Canada and Greenland.
This is classic multipolar politics, trade the two behemoths against each other so they don't roll over one day and just squish you. By alienating Canada and Europe we've handed China a great gift.
It's only getting started. Do you think Europe is going to use American networking equipment when America has shown that it will use its military against Europe? American grid technology?
And what about all those huge pending orders for F35 in ... Denmark and Canada? Etc.
Denmark ordered more in October. Canada talks a lot, but so far has done nothing concrete about reducing their order.
You would think they would urgently cancel and get Gripens and/or Rafales.
Wonder what's going on behind the scenes.
Having a pending order that can be cancelled is negotiation leverage?
There are no other options. The F35 is the only gen5 fighter you can buy (Russia has one, but they can't make it and in any case Russia is invading Europe now and so not an option) , and as such it is going to be better than anything else you can get. Plus the cost of the F35 is similar or less than your other options.
The real question is what do those countries do when they have other options.
everyone is expecting everyone to actually go Gripen with Rolls Royce or MECA engines?
Europe is stuck with American tech with no real alternatives in the horizon. Europe doing an independent stack is just wishful thinking.
The alternative is China.
Wasn’t there a report in the last 10 years about China accounting for a huge portion of property sales in Canada? I thought I remembered seeing it was as high as 30% in some areas.
30% of house sales in Canada are not purchased in China, no.
Found the article. Vancouver specifically.
I believe this led to some legislation in 2023 to prevent or reduce foreign home buyers?
This is the outcome when your corporations bow down to wall Street. Tax payers money is just used to prop up their private profits and without exposing them to the actual competition. Short term profit seeking. Who foots the bill, the US tax payer who have to pay for the corporate profits and drive overpriced underperforming vehicles.
Protecting automakers can be considered a vital business for national security. This is not good for consumers, but relying on China for everything also carries many risks.
If China could sell it's cars here, it would spur American automakers to innovate, no? Government protectionism causes complacency
It's a balance. If a country is investing severely in a specific industry you can either tax them out of your swamp, counter invest in your industry or, realistically, do a mix.
It'd be difficult to compete with companies receiving large gov assistance without gov assistance and I find taxing them slightly safer than making it rain on specific people/companies.
It definitely worked in the past with Japanese cars.
I can 100% confidently say the average US buyer is not an auto enthusiast. Cars are appliances to the vast majority of people here.
There are multiple other factors for the relatively low adoption of EVs compared to China.
Automobile buyers who buy American or European cars are more likely to be auto enthusiasts.
Then there's the utility / practical / recreational crowd who goes for SUVs and pickup trucks.
Those whose primary aim is utility are already in (non-EU) foreign markets or used. Those are invisible to new-car US/EU sales.
It's a classic Innovators Dilemma dynamic (Clayton Christensen), where chasing higher-end market niches torpedoes development of disruptive tech within the same firm.
The mean, median and modal auto buyer in north america is buying a blob shaped "car" that's marketed as a "crossover" and officially categorized as an "SUV" for compliance reasons. Maybe it's an ICE, maybe it's a hybrid, some are even electric. 99.9% of buyers choose based on fit for their intended usage pattern. And because the automakers are competing for these hordes of buyers in this segment, these cars are very competitive in terms of bang for buck.
The types of buyers who chose their form factor or source of motive power for their vehicle based on image or virtue points are a rounding error.
I own 2 cars, both Porsche. Mine is a 15 year old Boxster S. The wife has a brand new Macan 4S EV. It is a brilliant car. 280mi/450km @ 80% charge and no issues with the cold. It was 27F/-3.5C this morning.
I will never buy a gas car again. I plan to keep my Boxster until I can buy an EV version.
In the US there isn't much choice. There are a few Japanese and Korean cars - but even those brands put effort into appealing to auto enthusiasts.
Remember, if you need a widget that you don't otherwise care about knowing someone who does care about them recommends something is a very important factor in your decision. The realistic difference between a car/suv of similar size between GM, Toyota, or VW (random choice of brands but covering the 3 geographical regions) is minimal: the non-enthusiast will be happy in any of them.
Auto enthusiasts no, but cars are definitely not appliances in the US.
Cars are a way people mark their social status - whether they will admit it or not. A big, luxurious SUV with a small mountain of space, the latest tech, etc is not an 'appliance'. It's a luxury people are choosing to buy.
The difference is in priorities. Americans wanted a very different kind of car than China is/was making.
> I can 100% confidently say the average US buyer is not an auto enthusiast. Cars are appliances to the vast majority of people here.
Only like 1-2% of new cars are manual transmission here. A lot of the enthusiast market complains that everything is an automatic these days, even high end sports cars.
I like manual transmissions but I think DCTs are an improvement for the average car. They seem to have a lot less "hunting" than the typical torque-converter automatic and good precision for the driving conditions. It is easy to put them into a manual-select mode. And, of course, they don't seem to stall.
The manual transmission crowd cannot be convinced. Even when you show them the performance advantages etc. They just want 'fun' and 'engaging', however they define that.
Manual transmissions have certain advantages, particularly in their home next to an ICE. They never 'hunt' for gears; if you want that, you have to hunt. They can be push started if the battery is dead.
Manuals are really good in bumper-to-bumper traffic: often the second gear has an incredible range from slow crawling to 40 km/h. You keep the clutch completely engaged and just work the gas pedal. (The odd time when things look like they are coming to a complete stop, you hit the clutch to keep the engine from stalling. But if the traffic moves again while you are still rolling, then you just re-engage in second gear.
You can do a similar thing in automatics with their 1 or 2 gears, but it doesn't work quite as nicely as that second gear in a typical manual.
Manual transmissions are tougher against heavy loads (than torque converter automatics). If you have to tow a heavily loaded trailer, manual is better. The clutch is fully engaged and so very little energy is lost in the transmissions. Automatic transmissions can heat up under load and can overheat.
A lot of this is not relevant when we are talking electric vehicles, of course.
But in an ICE car, there are good reasons to prefer a manual transmission, even if you're not a sporty driving enthusiast.
I've driven both. I don't know how to define what I feel, but the true clutch is more "fun and engaging". I still went with a EV because it is the right choice, but I want the ICE with manual and if money was limitless I'd have a collection (plus a personal mechanic to keep them all running)
For me, there is the sense that the transmission is doing a precise and correct job, which reflects my intent. That causes the feeling of fun that comes from anything that works well.
On YouTube there are videos of machines doing precise jobs well, which people call "satisfying to watch". Those are relevant to the discussion, I feel.
You can get a ioniq 5N which simulates appropriately ICE noises, gear switching when you want it, and drive silently when you want it
I have only ever owned cars with manual transmissions for my personal vehicles.
I would 100% get a vehicle without a manual for my next car if it’s an improvement over a manual. I’ve driven a handful of Priuses. I would definitely own one. I would definitely own an EV.
I have no desire to own an ICE-only vehicle with a CVT, automated manual, or conventional automatic. They add complexity and opaque failure modes. Last year I lost reverse in our plow truck (an automatic). Totally undiagnosable for me, nevermind fixable. Had a new used transmission put it, and it started bogging and lurching from a stop and up hills. Can’t work around it, can’t fix it. Sold the truck for $300 to someone who’s going to part it out (the engine wasn’t great either) and moved the plow onto a new used truck.
We’re not all stuck in the past. Some of us do understand the system well enough to be picky about believing something is an improvement.
Another example: CFL lightbulbs flat-out sucked. Avoided them as best as I could. Bought CREE LED bulbs at $20 apiece as soon as they came out at Home Depot.
Manual transmission people are like the audiophiles of cars. Other than some sports cars, nobody cares.
I like manual transmissions; they do what you tell them, and do it quickly. They are fun to drive.
They are also on their way out, together with the internal combustion engine. It's possible to work them into electric cars, but they don't make much sense there.
The deal breaker for me isn't the lack of a manual transmission, but all the screens and software updates, and barriers to repair.
Can we not have an electric econobox that focuses on utter simplicity?
They are in the sense that most of them are buying cars that represent their identity. For example nearly every pick up truck is an "auto enthusiast", because almost none of them are used for their primary purpose more than a few times mes a year.
Many Americans base their identity off that appliance though, buying big trucks to drive around the suburbs and commute in. It needs to go vroom, so no e trucks allowed. I'd say it's more like a form of narcissism than enthusiasm.
Explain to me why I should want an electric car?
Low maintenance costs, cheaper operational cost (depending on electric rates).
Some of them are quite peppy too. My Leaf isn't but it meets the criteria I just gave.
> Americans are stuck in ICE engines because they’ve been told they’re “car enthusiasts”
actually I think there are two strange things going on.
Tesla has completely dominated acceleration vs ice cars. The model S can dor 0-60 in (admittedly fudged) 1.99 seconds. The model 3 performance has 500 or 600 horsepower.
This has created lots of EV enthusiasts.
BUT - they have also been screwing things up.
By taking away displays like the dashboard in model 3, or controls like drive select, turn signals and putting everything on the touchscreen... there's a really terrible UI. Who can be an enthusiast without being part of the car control equation?
EVs are sold as a luxury product in the US. ICE cars are familiar, convenient (no need to figure out how to install a home charger), and otter cheaper (lower initial cost, service is cheaper, value maintains for much longer, etc). I bought electric, but I recognize it's a privilege to be able to do so.
If competitively priced EVs hit the market, consumers would buy them in much bigger numbers. Manufacturers want to use EVs as a way to redefine themselves and make more money and seemingly the industry is colluding to keep them premium with a shorter shelf life.
I'm a "car enthusiast" and even I understand that holding onto ICE is like holding onto horses because cowboys look cool. It is a distilled macho culture like those old Marlboro ads.
I have a lot of ICEs - they are collectors items I keep in the shed unless there is a parade. My EVs are the daily drivers, not as fun, but more practical.
The above isn't quite true - there are some "daily" ICEs yet because EVs aren't in all niches and I don't replace things instantly even if they were. The idea is the future that is coming closer and closer to reality.
You are wrong - it is like holding onto horses because cars require carrying a mechanic to get anywhere. BEVs aren’t ready for every use and every place and every one in the US by at least a decade, so keeping an ICE / buying one today is the pragmatic choice.
> EVs aren’t ready for every use and every place and every one in the US by at least a decade
Gee, I wonder why.
EU automaters fail at making modern cars. They just put a bunch of screens in there with awful software. If you go all screens, just commit like Tesla. If you can't beat Tesla, just stick with minimal screens and use buttons.
Somewhere between 2010 and 2020, most automakers went crazy with their designs and it went all downhill from there.
I have a 2020 Fiat 500 Abarth, and it is absolutely perfect: There is a screen (I think 7") for Android Auto/CarPlay/radio/nav, and every single other function in the car has a physical button. It is also absolutely gorgeous - pinnacle of design, IMO
That's about what I want from interior - any builtin infotainment will get out of date, any more electronics is just stuff to eventually break
Our 2021 Volkswagen e-Up is like this. There is a tiny(like 3" tiny) screen for the radio, bluetooth and reverse camera, everything else is analogue and has physical buttons. It's honestly best of the best Volkswagen design, what they did with their newer cars in terms of interior usability is a travesty.
They fell for Tesla-fication ... and are only now waking up to the mistake.
i still miss the interior of my 2010 fiat punto
From this year all EU cars will have physical buttons for heater controls, media etc.
Not sure why would you think EU automakers fail at making modern cars, also, you're generalizing 40+ car automakers in one basket.
The US controls the oil monopoly, where as China controls battery minerals.
The US can’t compete in electric vehicles solely due to lack of control over the complete supply chain.
This is exactly so. Not only is the USA hurting itself by distancing itself from it's former allys in policy and trade but it's forcing the rest of the world including EU to look more towards east for trade partners and temporarily for military support until Germany rearms itself.
Canadians already took the lead and are now taking steps to let Chinese EV manufacturers into the Canadian markets with less tax/tariff.
Meanwhile Europe is still struggling a lot with coming to terms with new world order. They've been sucking up to the USA too long since the WW2. German economy is largely dependant on car manufacturing and China is threatening this. But something is going to have to give now.
Are you talking about ICE car enthusiasts only? For general car modders and enthusiasts, it may take a few more generations of production releases before more crop up, but I think more EV car enthusiasts will emerge after more and lower cost EV powered systems come out from factory systems optimized for higher volume. With that sheer amount of gear accessible over time, custom makers and mod products will find ways to modify and reassemble it.
> And let’s be real, “car enthusiasts” are going to disappear in one or two generations.
Not sure if you have realized this, but we have a pretty decent numbers of horse enthusiasts now.
Sure, but compared to an era when horses were used as a practical form of transport the number is effectively zero. Horses are a novelty that wealthy people play with. ICE cars will go the same way.
I think we are going to be driving hybrids in large numbers for several decades until there's a new battery technology that triples energy density over the state of the art now.
It can be invented sooner of course, technology prediction never really works.
Apart from Toyotas, hybrids are kind of unpopular precisely because they're a compromise. Not many people who do make the switch to EV go back.
Additional tipping points will come when cities start banning combustion engines on emissions grounds. Then gas stations start closing. After a while you get the reverse condition to EV range anxiety: having to drive further and further out of your way to fill up. Maybe you get a script-flipping service, an EV comes to the few remaining unconverted combustion vehicles with a small bowser of fuel.
But that is far in the future, long after my recently purchased ICE needs replacing.
The 1970s suggests that when gas stations start closing they may close a lot faster than people expect. Gas has a weird margin and is often something of a "loss leader" to convenience stores (or now full supermarkets). On the supply side it is capital-heavy and demand-driven in interesting ways that will respond to demand drops in terms of a "ratchet effect", in which many types of temporary shutdowns will result in permanent shutdowns that will be more expensive to restart than there should be investment interest.
Gas logistics is fascinating with how many possible places exist for disruption (in the negative sense more than the tech sense) to cause domino chains.
Things have the possibility to get "very interesting" in a unique shutdown spiral. I don't know how soon we'll see it, or if we'll see it, but if it happens I don't think it is "far" in the future, even as the 1970s starts to feel too far out of cultural memory to use as an allegory.
Almost everyone I know with an EV also has another car right now.
This is nonsense. Hybrids are outselling EVs in the US.
Hybrid adoption in the US is soaring. It's doubled in just a few years. They're hugely popular in the US precisely because they're NOT a compromise.
They are hugely popular in the US because there are more of them for sale and they have a lot of momentum from Toyota getting lost in the Hydrogen distraction.
From the perspective of a BEV with a modern range, hybrids have terrible all-electric range (if they even have true electric range) and worse maintenance schedules/cost of ownership. That's the compromise: less weight for good batteries for pure electric range and higher cost of ownership for high weight moving parts that you don't need in trips below electric range.
>and worse maintenance schedules/cost of ownership
Sorry, but this is simply incorrect. The Toyota Prius has the most reliable powertrain on the American market in most studies. This is the decades old Toyota hybrid planetary gearset engine and eCVT. It has less moving wear parts than an ICE engine, a generous warranty, absorbs brake wear, etc. It's pretty umambigious at this point, so I'm not sure where you're sourcing your facts from (vibes?).
Given this fact wasn't understood, there isn't much more content to engage with. Modern hybrids are popular because they're very good and side-step all of the myriad problems with electric vehicles.
More reliable than the average ICE, statistically, I will grant you. Though I think that has more to do with Toyota dominating US auto manufacturing reliability statistics in general, more than particulars of hybrids over ICE. The comparison, however, was to a full ("uncompromised") BEV. A full BEV has much fewer moving parts than ICE or Hybrid. (Especially because good electric motors don't even constitute "moving parts" when compared to an internal combustion engine, thanks to magnets.)
It doesn’t matter that it “has less moving parts”. It is the most reliable powertrain on the market full stop, including full electric powertrains.
Solid state lithium batteries, which are starting to roll out now, are big enough jump. They have 50-80% more capacity which gives enough range for a day of driving. They charge faster so can charge on regular stops. They aren't flammable.
Cars don't need triple energy density, 600mi range and 15min charge is plenty. There is cost factor, but batteries have gotten cheap that isn't an issue. People talk about lithium shortage but it hasn't shown up.
> 600mi range and 15min charge is plenty.
Agreed.
So, it would be a matter of how fast the solid state batteries you speak of make their ways into actual cars. Right now, there aren't any.
And battery tech has always over promised and under delivered.
The smartest direction for someone manufacturing for the US market right now is probably EREVs aka serial hybrids - pure electric drivetrain, onboard gas generator. Only use gas when you're taking the kids to Grandma's, or when some obstacle prevents you from charging normally. Ford seems to be going in this direction, possibly a little late.
I agree, this is likely the technology for the next few decades. Maybe with some supercapacitors or something like that thrown in.
Electric motors are far more efficient at producing mechanical energy than a engine+transmission combo is. But at the same time, batteries suck.
"If I asked what people wanted they'd have asked for a longer range horse." Henry Ford, probably.
Maybe you’re the kind of person who believes the glass is always full if you can make the glass arbitrarily small.
If I’m a glass enthusiast or glass-filling-liquid enthusiast, sure if the alternative is those things not existing!
I get the impression that what the Chinese want out of a car is different and, realistically, a bit more aligned with the trajectory of human progress as well.
I remember the (UK) Top Gear episode, which I'd guess must be at least 15 years old now, where they were talking about Chinese car brands, like Roewe, and they were ripping on them for being a bit crap in various ways (performance, not that fun to drive, etc.), but they also highlighted that what's important to Chinese car buyers is equipment level and having the latest tech[0] so, even though the cars at the time weren't the best, they were packed with gadgets and creature comfort.
Add 15 years of rapid progress onto that and it's not surprising that China is dominating in the EV space, because it aligns so well with what Chinese buyers might be looking for in a vehicle.
[0] And having seen what traffic jams in Chinese cities can look like it entirely makes sense to optimise for comfort and engagement whilst sitting still or in stop go traffic, than for driving experience when you're never really going to experience the handling anyway.
I am in Portugal right now. You know something we don’t have often here? Garages.
For example in my neighborhood most cars are parallel parked, people are living in centuries old houses converted into high density condos, there are no garages.
So what is more practical, charging your car overnight without an electric plug or going to the gas station for a few minutes?
You use kerbside charging. Unlike petrol, electricity comes to you.
This is how it needs to work, but in practice it doesn't really exist right now. (And, in the few places where it does exist, the price basically destroys a lot of the running costs advantages of an EV).
I do have a garage and 'fuel' is half the cost of my previous, smaller ICE. We're considering solar power to get it practically free.
There's some nicer differences like leaving the air-conditioning on constantly because there's no pollution and it's also practically free. It's nice to have a giant battery instead of requiring an engine to constantly recharge it to run the electronics.
That's cost, not practicality. Like it or not, the EV isn't as flexible when it comes to ownership, because you need a place to charge it. A product that is less practical has to be cheaper to compete in the market.
Depends completely on the EV and usage patterns. Here's one of the more interesting points in the design space: https://silence-mobility.nissan.de/
>>A product that is less practical has to be cheaper to compete in the market.
Unless the downside doesn't matter to you, then obviously it doesn't. Our e-Up was more expensive than a regular petrol Up, but it was absolutely worth paying the extra for the convenience of being able to charge it at home - it's like having your own personal petrol station in your own driveway.
For someone else, that might have been an inconvenience and the car would have to be much cheaper to offset the hassle - for us it was worth the premium. So it's not so clear cut as you present it.
With batteries reaching 800-1000km per charge and most people doing around 30km a day of driving (way less for people living in dense areas), you basically only need to charge your car once every two weeks.
>>So what is more practical, charging your car overnight without an electric plug or going to the gas station for a few minutes?
100x charging your car overnight with a plug. I don't think people who don't own an EV realize how great that is. Imagine if your petrol car magically got refilled with fuel every single night - add up all of those "few minutes" spent at a petrol station over your lifetime, and realize how much time you're getting back.
>> people are living in centuries old houses converted into high density condos, there are no garages
And yeah, that's a problem everywhere, not just in Portugal. Here in the UK a lot of people wouldn't have anywhere to charge at home.
Please don’t repeat the myth that your car is getting refilled every very night unless you are charging to 100% every night or are willing to concede your range is 80% of the stated range.
I do recharge to 100% every night - is that unusual in any way?
Between batteries getting bigger and home charging for many reasons capping at Level 2 (US "dryer plug" / UK regular plug) many EVs don't have enough time to recharge to 100% every night. That said, any over night gains are still better than gas can do.
(The unique US problem that the easiest charging is Level 1 is a complication here, too, because it especially can't recharge modern battery sizes overnight. But overnight Level 1 charging is still a game changer versus no overnight gas refueling. The "what's the point of charging when it can't do 100% overnight?" crowd can be quite vocal, despite gas cars having no easy way to refuel overnight.)
I want that throaty Lotus Exige shame only 260s legal in US. No electric for me not because I'm against it but I love that sound, real sound. I know Tesla Plaid can do 0-60 in 1.9 but so can Corvette C8. Not that Exige is that powerful but it's a sexy car.
as a wannabe "car enthusiast", I'd happily buy a fun EV if one existed for a reasonable price. the xiaomi su7 for example looks incredible, and I'd jump on that if sold here in the US in a heartbeat.
but for the majority of people, yeah, I don't think they really care either way. if we had the infrastructure and EVs were sold at the prices that people are seeing for the Chinese EVs, I think they'd switch away from ICE fairly easily.
Car enthusiast here. I raced in Formula Ford in Europe in my younger days. I still dream about the day I drove a 911 GT2. Nearly every car I’ve ever owned has been a manual.
But with the ridiculous tax incentives here in Australia (at least while they last), my new car turned out to be an EV. Specifically the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. And let me tell you, while the logical part of my brain knows that the gear shifts and the exhaust notes and everything about it is “fake”, when I’m driving it around a track or a challenging B road, every part of my body is fooled into thinking it’s real. And reluctant as I might be to admit it, it might just be the most fun car I’ve ever had
Is it perfect? No. I wish it was 10cm lower to the ground. I wish it was at least 600kg lighter. But it has completely disabused me of the notion that electric cars can’t be fun.
The Ioniq 5N is extremely funny on paper. It's not wildly expensive, nor is it greatly modified from stock, but the engineers decided to just completely overspec the torque on what is otherwise an ordinary family car. So you get a 0-60 time of about three seconds.
I'm slightly surprised there aren't more cheap electric "hot hatches", but I think that market is dead even in ICE cars - young people don't have much free cash, aren't interested, and the insurers won't let them either.
The Volvo EX30 / MG4 XPower would fit in the hot hatch / sub-compact crossover crossover. Both cars are the size of a raised VW Polo at 4.2m length while having over 400hp and around 3.5 secs to 60.
While not exactly cheap, you can get the MG for under 30k eur if you shop around for some discounts and the volvo at around 35-40k. considering a 300hp golf R is over 50k eur they're pretty great options for some cheap fun. Cheap as in total cost of ownership, not just purchase price.
Also, the SC01 people just announced that they plan to bring it to Europe [1] so that's gonna be a great option.
Yeah, it does look like the Hot Hatch category is returning to Europe with strong EV options. (Nature is healing?)
At the moment US automakers are stuck in a "cross-over is the new hatchback" position because Americans got into a tragedy of the commons that has trended towards larger vehicles at the expense of everyone's safety (and energy efficiency and weight to passenger efficiency and general vehicle coolness).
And that’s based on a family car platform—wait until you drive something more purpose-built. Take a look at the Renault 5 Turbo E, the work-in-progress electric A110 and 718, or the more affordable SC01. Fun EVs are definitely coming in the next 5 to 10 years.
Car enthusiasts never disappear, but they will be a small part of the market just like always.
Maybe it's naive of me, but I think the enthusiast will still have a place in the future, just as they can now own cars without 3-point seatbelts, catalytic converters, traction control, ABS, airbags, crumple zones, etc. all of which have been mandated for many decades.
EU car manufacturers decided that cheaper-to-make electric cars must be sold as luxury vehicles and failed to achieve economies of scale China did with their underwhelming initial models they kept improving relentlessly every year.
I've test driven one, fun little car, decent provision of some non-touchscreen controls.
Ironically I think Tesla really opened up the EV market at all in the West by starting as a luxury option and working downwards. People don't want to feel they're taking a "hair shirt" option. "EVs are for rich people" has probably sold more cars than "EVs are for poor people" messaging would have.
It's not to my taste that bonnet lines have got higher, SUV style, but it appears to be what the public wants to buy.
The ID4 is such a pleasure to drive. Reminds me of a VW Parati from the 90s I used to drive, soft but not boat-y. Apparently it also sells pretty well in China, which is a huge statement to its appeal given the competition there.
How many generations are we even into cars?
Maybe 4ish?
Most kids alive but not yet driving are likely to own only hybrid ma or electrics.
Seems like a relatively short term problem overall.
I'm not a car enthusiast. Unfortunately, I'm also not a phone-on-wheels enthusiast either.
Well, currently US _are_ ICE enthusiasts, lamentable as that may be.
Nothing is done ever. Remember when the U.S. deeply feared Japan's rapidly growing economy?
Whenever I read or hear definitive statements like that I heavily bet on the other side.
> Remember when the U.S. deeply feared Japan's rapidly growing economy
They DID fear them and took action to gimp their industry. Read the Plaza Accord and the aftermath to the Japanese economy.
“Americans are stuck in ICE engines because they’ve been told they’re “car enthusiasts”
Who told them?
The marketers of the same companies that aren't trying to sell them small, cheap, practical EVs and want everyone to pay for high margin trucks and SUVs.
> Practicality beats enthusiasm for 95% of car use.
About two years ago I rented an electric car for a few days. I felt like I wasted a ton of time finding a charging station, jumping through phone app hoops to get the charging process started, and then waiting for the car to charge. I've stayed away from electric rentals since, even though they're often cheaper.
Comparing renting a new type of car when you have to figure everything out for 2 days then return it, to owning a car, where you also have to figure everything out, but only for the first days, not the 600 days afterwards, is not really comparable.
Also, when you own a car you charge it at home and work, so you don't really wait for the car to charge very often.
And the next time you rent a car, it will be a bit simpler as you have done it once before. And even quicker/simpler the time after that etc.
It is 100% compatible when your basis is just finding a local gas station to fill up. 600 days later, you may know where a charging station is, but not any more convenient... yet.
You don't need a charging station for 99 per cent of your rides. You can charge daily at home and forget about recharging except when making a long trip.
If you usually make trips that are over the battery life, that's a different thing though. But most people don't have that problem.
That makes it even more realistic. I have the charger in my garage, I happened to need a charger to get home on my last trip (120 mile round trip, the car claimed 220 miles of charge but that didn't account for the cold winter), but I had to open an app and such just to use it. (at least I had the app and an account - but my credit card was expired so I had to type numbers to get it activated). I had to search for that charger - there was exactly one charger within 30 miles (only 7kw, but it gave me enough range to get home while I ate lunch).
Meanwhile I passed half a dozen gas stations. No app/account needed at any of them, just tap/swipe my credit card and fill.
Most people don't have the charging problem often, but when you make a mistake you sometimes will need it. The system doesn't work. There needs to be chargers all over, and they need to be quick/easy. I don't want to download an app for a charger I will likely never visit again in my life.
Under Biden we had laws requiring chargers to meet reliability requirements, use an open standard, take credit card payments without requiring an app, and build more in rural areas to close the coverage gap. Most of that has been scrapped by the current administration, going as far as removing chargers that were already installed.
This is the equivalent of setting up a developer environment for charging a car. Once you have a car that's working, and you know how to connect to the app and charge it, almost all these problems go away. If you're in a place that has a lot of public chargers near your destination that you're already going to, then it's even easier, and it just becomes trivial.
That being said, I don't think I would want to rent a car that didn't have a place to charge it or a very easy-to-use fast charger nearby.
Until NACS and plug and go are uniquitous, going on a trip not in a Tesla is a gamble of having the right app on your phone, and that you will be able to reach working chargers.
I think we are still a couple of years away from other manufacturers catching up to Tesla and making road trips for most people useful.
> jumping through phone app hoops
The very idea you effectively need a mobile phone to charge your car is mind boggling. The mess of proprietary charging networks and registrations is needless complexity that puts people off hiring (and ownership) of EVs.
I have little RFID cards from 2 charging companies that I can tap to their chargers to charge.
Also, many chargers support tapping a credit card on them to charge.
The credit card tapping option should be required by law. This registering apps and fobs flow is the worst ux imaginable. And while we are at it the car should hold the payment info. Plugging it in should be enough. I know it’s all coming.
I agree but I'd go further: Cash should be required by law, we shouldn't require people to have a bank account just to buy electricity.
Your comment is proving my point!
(Proprietary networks are a mess, and ordinary debit/credit card payments for EV charging are far from universal)
For rentals I get that.
We own 2 EVs and a charger at home. Easiest driving experience ever. We just plug it in.
I’m terms of upgrading your daily life, never going to a petrol station is a great upgrade.
Haven’t quite made it in our house, we went once or twice last year to charge on a long trip. Didn’t go in.
I remember when /r/technology was more about technology, now it is /r/politics with a microchip hat. I ignored that sub long ago.
Not that many Americans are car enthusiasts. The most popular cars have been basic commuters for decades.
While that is true, the new car market has narrowed to the point where most of the buyers want something overpowered for their money. The most popular cars are actually buying these when they are 10+ years old.
(I śaw recently that the USA market is about 16M cars.. this would have been low figure years ago. But they are barely selling 'basic commuter cars'.)
I guess it depends on how you define car enthusiast.
A lot of Americans spend far more on their vehicle than they need to and so I would classify them as enthusiasts even if they couldn't tell you how many cylinders their engine has.
I would define car enthusiast as someone who at least knows how many cylinders. For the purpose of the EV discussion, the people who don't know that aren't the people who want an ICE.
We often have very little choice about that, though. You can't buy something no one is selling.
It's hard to get basic commuter without overload of tech these days
What do you mean? If you look at a Toyota Camry/Corolla, there is barely anything that is "techy" in 2026. (not in a negative way)
Certain tech is cheap. I wouldn't classify that as non-basic. Chuck a few screens in the cabin is cheap. Matrix LED headlights less so.
Aren't the most popular "cars" in the US actually SUVs and light trucks?
Mostly. The Camry, Civic, and Corolla are up there though.
A lot of them are those mini SUVs like the CR-V. The thing about that list is it's grouped by model, and the share of non-trucks is more fragmented.
> Meanwhile, European makers are stuck not knowing what to do, make Americans happy or compete with the Chinese.
Huh? This comment sounds extremely America-centric to me. Porsche sells more cars into Europe than North America, despite taking a bigger there (-13-16% vs 0%)!
In general I don't think Porsche is representative of the car market as a whole, given their cars are all premium sports cars to at least some degree.
If you want more representative numbers look at more mass-market manufacturers. Notably, the Volkswagen group has a huge 20%+ market share in the EU, while it is below 5% in the USA. Renault is another example of a strong EU-centric brand and manufacturer with over 10% market share, even over 25% at home in France. Ford is a good example of the opposite, having 13% market share in the USA and only 2-3% here. Stellantis is strong in both markets, but has significant differentiation, even having different brands in both markets.
The technologies were developed in Europe and the USA.
The top selling vehicle in the world is a US EV? I think we're behind the point where all vehicles can be EV's, we still need ICE for certain things, but the US is arguably the only other country in the world where we produce EV's competitive with China
It has everything to do with regulation and almost nothing to do with "car enthusiasts".
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It's been a bizarre watch. The automotive industry (and nations that rely on it) has sabotaged itself for a good decade. Unsurprisingly, China has caught up. Classic case of 'we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas'.
Unions sabotaged automation efforts and limited hours worked. Quarterly financial pressures kept research investments to a minimum. Nations refused to scale up nuclear, and cost of electricity kept rising. The one well-run EV company (Tesla) decided to destroy its brand value overnight. Toyota went on a pig-headed hydrogen tangent and Honda still hasn't tried to make an EV. Korea has done surprisingly well. But, they're the exception that proves the rule.
China's rise as a manufacturing superpower was inevitable. But its rise as an automotive superpower involved major capitulation by the primary competition.
Please share how unions sabotaged automation efforts. As far as I can tell, unions are losing every fight these days.
Unions in countries like Germany and France are much more powerful. Especially VW is extremely unionized, half of the seats on the Supervisory Board are allocated to worker representatives. These employee representatives are elected or selected by the workers (usually via union and works council processes), so VW employees indirectly influence board decisions through these seats.
That doesn't explain how unions have sabotaged automation
> Unions sabotaged automation efforts and limited hours worked.
It's completely rational for unions, and the workers, to prevent automation. The short term results of automation are only negative for workers, and positive for every other part of the market (customers, suppliers, capitalists). The results might be positive in the long run, but why should only one group suffer.
Perhaps, the capital-owning class could make the deal positive for the workers by giving the workers ownership of a substantial portion of the firm. Then whats good for the firm would become good for workers, and the union would not oppose automation so much.
> but of the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
It's done. They're already the premier automotive superpower now. It might not seem like it in Europe and USA, but anywhere else in the world they are dominating. I live in Morocco and I am not exaggerating when I say that every week I see a new Chinese brand on the road. Not just cars of the same brand, completely new brands. Dacia and a lot of PSA cars are built in Morocco, so naturally they always had a strong positioning here, but now I'm seeing more BYDs than DACIA's most popular car, the Duster. It's anecdotal but it's quite telling considering the foothold French brands have always had here.
Here's a chart showing the sheer dominance of Chinese brands on the EV market in Morocco. 6 out of 10 models are Chinese.
And I think the difference is going to be apparent 15-20 years from now when new parts are needed for these models.
With the big boys like Ford, Toyota etc I can trust that they manufactured (and still manufacture) parts with warehouses full of them and I can always find the part I need to repair a vehicle.
I very much doubt that we will see the same thing with Chinese auto companies, even premier ones like BYD.
> And I think the difference is going to be apparent 15-20 years from now when new parts are needed for these models.
Perhaps unstated, but this is going to be like trying to find parts for my Nokia 3210 (current age: 27). EVs are still in the "rapid improvement" phase, and by the time the battery warranty expires (5-7 years) the cars available on the current market will be significantly better in all respects.
On the other hand, they just have far fewer "parts" in the first place. Early indication is very good for lifetimes of the non-battery parts.
I expect the median EV of today to have a shorter life than a corresponding ICE, but the EV of 10 years time to have a much longer one. Which is going to make all the stupid issues around infotainment and subscription issues more acute.
No EV is going to run 20 years from now unless replacing batteries will start costing significantly less.
In Europe there's plenty of Chinese cars to be honest.
And they often outsell European cars price-to-price, even through tariffs. It's crazy.
The whole topic of tariffs on their cars is also very complicated that European automakers aren't in favour of, because large parts of their sales come from outside Europe.
thanks, how is the consumer response ? they love it ? quality is good ? and prices too ?
in the australian market theres often comparison between how BYD/(chinese brands) may unseat Tesla (as the scale EV first mover), but I haven't seen what I think is the prize, which is BYD want to take on Toyota as the de facto king of global car making. They want the whole car market, not just EV and are already setup to take that on.
Especially as Toyota seems structurally unable to create a good EV. They produced one completely bare-bones model 30 years ago and never expanded past that. At least they're keeping some knowledge of the parts by having PHEVs, but I don't think they're on the leading edge of anything. Maybe they don't need to be and can buy everything from other suppliers, but they're going to be doing a whole lot less than they currently do and not sure they'll keep their profit margin.
Toyota hybrids are full hybrids however, not mild hybrids like other manufactures, so all you really need is a bigger battery and charger. My 10 year old RAV4 Hybrid (not plug-in) can deliver 160kW just from the electric motors, without the engine. That's 3x a Dacia Spring. They have the technology for motors and control electronics, and they know it works long term without issues.
Most of the European EVs are basically just electric city cars, unable to drive long ranges due to small batteries and limited fast charging. And most of them after 100,000km will need a new battery. Doesn't really fit in with Toyota's 'long term reliability' stance.
I can't blame Toyota for waiting for the technology to mature before they go all in on EVs. Plus they do have the bz4x / RX which are full EVs you can buy today.
That's why I said they're not necessarily out of the running, like Mazda or Subaru. But that technology isn't quite right; it's two motors, connected to a planetary gearset and in a conventional location to a gasoline engine. They're still thinking "engine here, transmission there, differential in this part" and not working on "how can we reduce cost if we don't have one prime mover that gets really hot". Their motors aren't the most efficient technology and so they aren't learning as much as their competitors are who are shipping lighter, more-powerful motors.
And they could still be right. The future could be 100-mi-EV PHEVs with ever-smaller engines and they'd be the best at it. But I think BYD will prove that wrong outside the USA.
> Most of the European EVs are basically just electric city cars, unable to drive long ranges due to small batteries and limited fast charging. And most of them after 100,000km will need a new battery. Doesn't really fit in with Toyota's 'long term reliability' stance.
Australian cities must be enormous for this statement to make any semblance of sense.
Not that big, but absolutely enourmous distances between them. The inter-city highway infrastructure is lacking in EV chargers, but it's getting better.
I've been pondering this, especially given that Japan is not an oil-producing country, and concluded: it's the internal politics of the engine group.
That is, the people who design engines and run the engines division have sufficient heft within the organization that they can prevent a good car being made that doesn't have an engine in it.
It's sort of worked out for them as they have a big niche in the taxi market, and other high milage users who've not taken the EV plunge yet. If you want the most efficient vehicle that still uses petrol, buy a Toyota.
To me it feels like Toyota have over-committed to parallel hybrids, because they did them first and best, and are now unwilling to move on (to EVs and serial hybrids) even now that it's past time.
>Then I think you see an early indication not just of electric car dominance, but of the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
I thought we were there already tbh. Chinese cars have gone from laughably bad to quality parity in less than a decade. Like even 2 years ago, I was still hearing "the paint the paint" as the last remaining issue. But I dont hear that anymore.
Parity? Their EVs are streets ahead, doubly so for the price.
Other than price, in what ways are they streets ahead? I’m a bit of an EV nerd and that would not be my assessment at all. Unfortunately for Western manufacturers price/volume is probably the most important thing right now, so they are still in serious trouble.
Well the software for one (excluding Tesla), it's faster, more advanced, more creative (probably more gimmicks but still).
Domestically (in China) they also offer much higher charging wattage.
But yes quality is at parity and they're cheaper.
Most Chinese cars still have massive software quality issues that you don’t hear about because there are few of them around here. ADAS are usually much worse as well.
My biggest software issue with my GWM relates to how they gamed the DPF, which is a local requirement. They built in the required automaticaly regenerating DPF, but also set the temperature/rev requirement so that it never automatically regenerates (even if it indicates it is doing so). So I have to manually regenerate every other month.
Otherwise the software is pretty good, with the occasional midflight reboot.Its definitely no worse than the honda I ran previously.
Interiors imho.
Their interiors on midrange+ vehicles seems leagues ahead of European automakers.
A 100k+ euros Mercedes Benz E class doesn't even get you real leather from a decade (by the way I prefer MB tex, but what are you paying for exactly?).
I dont drive one of their EV's, but the 20+ year veteran Diesel Engineer who took my DPF filter complaint escalation does and thats really all I need to know. After I run my current vehicle into the ground, that will probably be next.
Similar story here. I know a guy who does chip tuning as his career. He bought a Tesla last year, and he's more than happy with it.
Have you ever ridden in a BYD? It's super loud, horrible suspension, seats are extremely uncomfy, everything is cheap with a fancy looking facade. If you need a car to go from point A - B and can't afford any luxury, it's fine. But it's a bare minimum vehicle with looks to appeal to status.
I have ridden in a BYD and it was the opposite experience: excellent suspension, unusually smooth ride, great seats. A few things on the dashboard did look a bit tacky. But overall, massive difference from where Chinese cars were even 5 years ago.
Replying from a BYD now. I wish HN could attach photos.
It's literally quieter than a bicycle, except for a whirring when the car powers up. We've come across people and animals standing in the middle of the road because they didn't realize the car was right behind them.
Soundproofing is good too. It comes with karaoke built in and it's more sound proof than many karaoke rooms.
Suspension is much better than my previous car but I'll reserve judgement until it's also 5 years old.
Seats are comfortable enough to sleep in - some people are even using it as an alternative to a hotel, because you can keep the air-conditioning on all night and the seats go all the way down to a horizontal position. There's a window up top so you can watch the stars at night too.
Also the seats have air-conditioning in case your back is hot too.
Tesla has shown that you can buy usd100K cars with dubious quality and terrible materials.
That makes it easier for brands who sell cheaper models imho. It is all about status, and right now having an EV and a fricking 17" TV on the dashboard trumps everything else.
Havent ridden in a BYD, but I absolutely abhor the Tesla interior, its like riding around in a rickety iPad.
BYD's seem (super subjective) to make less road noise outside of the vehicle. I still get snuck up on by them in car parks, but I have tuned in to the Tesla hum and can hear them a while off.
I think you are a few years out of date. Certainly they used to be not great. They are way better now.
Most of what you’re describing applies to Teslas too, tho.
Have you seen the paint schemes on new Chinese cars? Wow. Embedded glitter, chameleon colors, while the European car industry is doing boring primer like paint schemes. I always joke that they applied clear coat onto primer. And that's on >60k models.
The "greige" colour appalls me. Not only does it look like primer, it looks like the grey of old PC cases under a brown of smoke. Either basic white or basic black would be better. Or classic metallic silver.
In terms of quality they are there, now it's expansion. I, for one, am quite excited for all this competition. I don't care who makes my level 4/5 self driver, I just want it now.
They're up roughly 10% over last year and will likely hit 35% of global production. The big shift over the last decade (beyond their growing market share) is that their overall quality has caught up to (and in many cases surpassed) the traditional incumbents.
Barring a global war, I think they're unstoppable at this point.
I remember when Japan was supposed to take over the world in the '80s, to the point that "back to the future 2" had Americans speaking Japanese to their managers.
Toyota did become the dominant producer, but American and European car makers (and now Koreans and Chinese) are still around. I wouldn't bet on total domination from China anytime soon.
Well, China is not accepting/going through a Plaza Accord kind of an agreement. So history might not replay itself this time.
Yes I remember, too. The crucial difference is that Japan's population is one third of the US while China's is 4 times the US (and 3x the EU).
Basically Japan never had the numbers to "take over the world" while China has them even if natality is way down.
If China had the same clout relative to population as Japan, Germany, Korea, or the US it would dwarf everyone else, and that's why the US are in a panic about China.
And funny thing, all three countries car industries were started by the USA.
China spent a lot of money for this position in the market.
> the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
This is dangerous, geo-politically, should China ever go to war with the West in any capacity.
In WW2, America's car factories gave it a decisive advantage, as part of the war machine.
Ford’s Willow Run plant produced one B-24 bomber every ~63 minutes at peak output. General Motors built tanks, aircraft engines, trucks. Chrysler: tanks and artillery.
The West de-industrialised, as a result of our globalist policy (thanks to the WTO, WEF and other supranational organisations). We have decimated our own military industrial production capability.
Meanwhile China has taken exactly the opposite approach.
I don't think the deindustrialization narrative is quite as bad as the doomers would have it, although it's notable that both sides in the Ukraine war depend on Chinese drone electronics.
(we've also forgotten the nuclear war narrative of the 80s: it's irrelevant if you can build a bomber in 63 minutes if it only takes the ballistic missiles 43 minutes from launch to arrival, at which point the war or at least industrial society is over)
What's in the mind of European political oligarchy really?
What do you mean?
great analysis
I don’t think anyone is going to keep an advantage in car manufacturing. The way we build them might totally change in a short duration with the rapid advancement in robotics
Most advancements in robotics have been for highly generalized robots. We’ve been using robotics to build cars for like 50+ years. They’re extremely good.
China may become the superpower on volume but I would be surprised if the upper quartile (by price) of western buyers were interested in Chinese vehicles. Too much quality issues across the board on Chinese made products, unless you have a trusted non-Chinese company with stringent quality control (e.g. Apple model).
I’m sure they can handily win the lower end of the market though. And yes I’m aware many western manufacturers are shit tier quality.
I don’t think this is accurate, Chinese firms are increasingly moving up the quality chain. You might want to look at some of the reviews of Xiaomi’s recently launched car. Also, Tesla Shanghai is one of their best factories, much better quality scores than Fremont iirc.
Having a totally local, integrated supply chain pays dividends in a lot of ways, as does leading in production volume. Tim Cook also gave that interview where he was just talking about the incredibly deep bench of industrial talent that you just can’t find outside China at this point - that labor cost wasn’t why they produced there.
The issue is not actual quality, it’s perceived quality. Chinese companies will fight decades of history and negative perception to reach top of the market consumers, a segment obsessed with perception.
Then again, it's been done before.
- Japanese consumer goods were perceived as junk until the tipping point was reached, and then they were perceived as high-quality, easily equalling or surpassing Western goods. That took ~30 years (1950 to 1980, say). Older readers will recall the controversy over Akio Morita's (Morita-san being the founder of Sony) statements in the book "The Japan that can Say No" (edit: see [0]), which seems strangely prescient in the sense that it ignited a lot of (US) debate around dependence on foreign semiconductors.
- Then there was Taiwan, again, a 30 year cycle from about 1970 to 2000. Taiwan used to be known for cheap textiles, consumer dross, and suchlike. Not now...
My point is that the way to get better at products is to make them and make them and make them, and eventually an export-led country reaches a tipping point where the consumers flip over, and their perception changes.
Exactly, I grew up during the beginning if the Japanese auto boom in the US. My grandfather was one of the first people in his group to buy one of the Japanese cars when they became highly reliable and his friend heckled him about it for awhile. Until that is he wasn't constantly repairing the thing. It got much better gas mileage. Wasn't getting ate up by rust. And it ran well over 150k miles, when US cars typically fell apart before 100k miles.
Rinse and repeat for Korean cars. And now China are deep into their cycle too. They're already producing high quality, at half the price, and I've noticed that the quality narrative is changing.
Regardless of where they are perception wise, the long term lesson is clear - local manufacturers may ride the "quality" bandwagon for a while, but ultimately it's a losing strategy.
ICE cars, and manufacturers who don't gave an EV strategy are already inside their Kodak moment. It's fairly obvious that at some point "all" cars will be EV, just like "all" cameras are digital. Those who remain ICE only will fade into obscurity.
Unfortunately the politicians in the US right now are driving a narrative away from EVs (and Tesla has become semi-toxic). Which in turn affects local manufacturers planning near term sales. By the time the mood swings it may be hard to catch up.
Or maybe not. Maybe they come late to the party simply skipping a bunch of iterations, going straight to great, cheap, reliable. Time will tell I guess.
>Rinse and repeat for Korean cars
My last few cars have been Hyundai's. Unfortunately my driving habits don't allow full EV driving, but I did go with one of their (non-plugin) hybrids.
And almost all of my family has moved to Hyundai over time. The pure US car companies have been dumping out total crap for the longest time, it's an easy sale for almost anything else.
Yeah I still don't understand this argument. The only cars I ever hear of (in Europe) with issues are German or French cars (not all brands). (Don't see many American brands here).
Did everyone forget the Kia/Hyundai lack of immobilizer US debacle already?
Where are you based that you hold this impression? Because globally BYD is perceived as having much better build quality than Tesla, rightly or wrongly.
Unless you live under a rock, China has more than worked around this, look at Volvo.
You realize this change by country, right? At least in my country (Brazil), Chinese cars already have a reputation for quality lol
just got an etron because my partner wanted a xpeng, guy is super happy in that xpeng and I gotta say, he's right
Etron is Audi?
From what I've heard, the quality is pretty good. The problem is when something breaks, you can be waiting for (sometimes very expensive) parts for months while not being able to use your car.
That's not particularly unique amongst car manufacturers.
Maybe I got lucky, but I drove a 2011 model Ford from 2013-2025, and the worst part delay I experienced in that time was when they had to get next-day parts from a nearby city.
It's worth pointing out that the F150 has been the best selling truck for 40 years and the best selling consumer vehicle for most of them as well. There's bound to be plenty of parts for them sitting around.
I've got one from 2011 that I'm still driving myself, and aside from one minor thing, I've not had a single problem with it, despite putting it through its paces.
Ford is definitely of the better manufacturers for this. Ubiquitous parts, most models are quite reliable, and a robust service network that's been embedded for decades. Toyota is another counter-example, and a lot of the incumbents are going to do better than newer brands.
You're speaking of Tesla here, correct?
it took Japan about 25 years of very directed industrial strategy to take the "made in Japan" label from indicating junk to the average American, to indicating a premium/reliable product. China might get there in even less than 25 years but you'll probably still find people holding onto old "chinesium" beliefs long after they should
A key for Japan is also that for various product categories, they don't export (or maybe manufacture at all - I'm just not really familiar with their non-export goods) low-quality goods - I assume because it isn't economical to compete at the low end of the market.
Even though China can compete at the top of many markets, they still also compete at the bottom, which taints their reputation.
Japan never was a threat during that time to countries around it. China is very much a threat to other countries around it and I would feel pretty bad about materially financing yet another war.
I'm beginning to feel this way about the US. Much more comfortable with Chinese foreign policy at this point. At this point, going on the past 50 years or so, it would take something quite extraordinary on China's part to convince me they are going to abuse their power as much as the US has so far. Hopefully I'm not simply being naive.
You need to pay better attention. I hate what Trump is doing to US foriegn policy - but it is still better than China, and there is hope that things will change in the future as elections continue. China doesn't even have that hope.
China is clearly supporting Russia in Ukraine. China is clearly making plans to invade Tiawas (that alone makes them just as bad as the US, even if it hasn't happened yet).
Unless you start a denazification project and start shooting MAGA cultists en-masse, the US is not recovering. This is a rot that goes beyond one man and one party.
Your empire is decaying and it's going to keep lashing out up until it's completely gone.
If we add up "damage to countries around it" in the previous hundred years, I think Japan doesn't look so great.
China conducted one several-week war against Vietnam and annexed Tibet, both over 50 years ago. Other than the longstanding dispute with Taiwan, who are they threatening? Some quibbles over a few Himalayan mountains with India?
They seem quite intent on inching their border closer to the Philippines mainland by building military bases on some shoals that belong to the Philippines.
> Some quibbles
Two wars.
One War. In 1962, i.e. 64 years ago. In meanwhile, US supported genocidal regime of Pakistan killing Hindus and many more in what is now Bangladesh. Sent billions more to Pakistan which are then used to fund terrorist activities in India. and some more recently under Covfefe.
"The Defence Ministry of India reported: 88 killed and 163 wounded on the Indian side, while 340 killed and 450 wounded on the Chinese side, during the two incidents.[6][7]
According to Chinese claims, the number of soldiers killed was 32 on the Chinese side and 65 on the Indian side in Nathu La incident; and 36 Indian soldiers and an 'unknown' number of Chinese were killed in the Cho La incident.[8] "
War might be overstating it a bit, "incident" might be more appropriate, but we can round up in the spirit of comity.
So adding it all up, the Chinese had 1-2 small foreign wars per decade in the 50s-70s, zero since 1979. It still doesn't justify the phrasing "threatening all their neighbors" in 2025, aside from Taiwan specifically.
In the case of the line of control with India, it's reached the point where they're having ritualized fistfights at high altitude for pride, that's just comical. It's not threatening.
Personnel die in those "fistfight", so not comical but also not a war.
Haha that little 'during that time' is doing some heavy lifting there. You don't think there might have been some slight lingering resentment and fear that the slouching monster that Japan was during WWII would come back? I think Japan's neighbors might have felt 'pretty bad' too, but it didn't matter. In the end the money wins.
You mean just like the rest of Europe does against Germany or Italy? Hint: we don't.
Are you implying that there wasn't massive resentment toward Germany and italy in postwar Europe?! Wild claim if so.
The (potential, no experience) quality issues are to me far outweighed by the enabling of yet another country to become a superpower which will then sooner or later result in yet another confrontation. Russia should have taught at least Europe that this sort of trade can only backfire in the longer term. Yes, I realize, China is the world's factory now, but there is no reason that can not change. I'm trying really hard to buy European made products and to use European services where possible. There are still a couple of hard nuts to crack but I'll get there.
In the US for example, most of the US brands are already made in China. They will copy the tooling and put a different brand name on it and you'll have a tool of the same quality for way less cost.
Simply put China is an unrecognized superpower at this point with the investments they've already made. The amount of infrastructure they've built in a decade dwarfs what the West has done in decades.
Sorry, the country with nukes, nuclear submarines, a massive navy and a permanent member on the UN Security Council isn’t recognized as a superpower? By whom?
What massive Navy would that be?
China has an estimated number of 370 battle force ships to the US’s 296 (US has 11 aircraft carriers to China’s 3). China’s total fleet displacement is about half but their ship building capacity is significantly higher. They are generally ranked second today behind the US and have been there since the last 2010s when they overtook Russia. They’ve been number 3 since 1987.
> I'm trying really hard to buy European made products and to use European services where possible.
European companies are trying even harder to outsource to China.
In the past months I’ve seen an increase and it feels like almost everything is made in China, from books to Christmas trinkets to clothes and kitchen utensils, it’s a pain the ass to find locally produced goods.
This has a lot to do with the energy crisis triggered by decoupling from Russia, which was never properly put into context and evaluated from an economical perspective.
Chinese electronics manufacturing now is like Japan in the 60s/70s - I give it like a decade max before "Made in China" is widely understood to mean "High Quality" rather than the "Cheap Junk" connotation it still has today.
It's like that with tools if you know what to buy, and costs well below the US brands.
For my primary tools I'll have hundreds of hours of use I still buy the more expensive brands, but on tools I'll use much less commonly I'll pick up a Chinese unit in a heartbeat for 1/10th the price.
If you read Calvin and Hobbes you can learn that Taiwan used to be known for making... shirts.
Selling the most cars will eventually translate into making the best cars, with the compounding experience and network effects.
At the time the US was making the most cars in the world...quality varied widely, to be generous.
You'd think so, but also, Tesla.
They don’t sell anywhere near the most cars, and their market share is shrinking. They also are a very VERY young manufacturer. This isn’t the right example to use imo.
Maybe Jeep? Very popular, dogwater quality. They take nearly half of the Consumer Reports “top 10 worst cars on the road” almost every year.
> Selling the most x will eventually translate into making the best x
It’s a theory for sure, but I don’t think that’s a common strategy for modern capitalism.
What about for socialism with Chinese charateristics?
The motivations from the people at the top are the same. Minimal effort and maximum profit.
No its the other way. In 4x4 They cannibalised the GM-Holden Colorado chassis production line in Thailand when GM exited that market, have refitted it with chinese made electronics and shell, and have complete quality parity. Actually a few people think the engine is better, and I am forced to agree. One of the colorado downstream models I tested had a better turning circle. They also tend to pack in all the "extras" other brands put on as standard. Consumers face a choice between cheaper and better vs tried and true brand loyalty. And brand loyalty has a limit tbh.
This was once said about Japanese cars. I don’t want a Chinese car now, but I probably will not too long from now.
I grew up hearing the same thing about the Japanese back in the 60s and 70s. That didn't last though.
People are buying £60000 BYD cars left and right. That's quite an expensive car.
The upper quartile are in the US and they're not allowed to buy Chinese cars, so you are right by default.
That notwithstanding, Xiaomi cars are nicer than Teslas. They're called "the Apple of China" for a reason.
They can't buy Chinese cars now, but I imagine the next Democratic president might want to knock Elon musk down a peg or two.
The next democrat still has ford and gm - with a lot of union labor - to worry about.
More people work for Target than the UAW
UAW pays better and is politically more powerful. They care more about UAW than Target employees
> UAW pays better
In some cases:
Target - in 2022 we enhanced our starting pay again, offering a range of $15 to $24 per hour
UAW wages at the big three automakers start at $18 and top out in the $30's. Meanwhile, UAW jobs at suppliers can start as low as $14/hr. You're probably not going to get 20-30 hours of overtime a week at Target, though.
Only 150,000 of the 380,000 UAW members are employed by the big three.
You also have union skilled trades jobs (electricians, millwrights, etc) that make more than production workers but Target pays their electricians etc more than the retail workers as well.
American foreign policy has been remarkably consistent over the last several decades.
Sometimes it’s the carrot and sometimes it’s the stick but the policies remain the same.
Nothing to do with quality. It's all image.
When Americans discover again how crappy their cars are compared to what's available elsewhere, like we did with Japan, there will be a reckoning once more. And again American cars will become the laughing stock they really are.
In the meantime, this incredibly short sighted protectionism will end just like the last round did. Further hollowing out our industrial base and permanently giving away large parts of a massive market.
And I'm sure all of the people involved in this insanity will want a bailout too.
>When Americans discover again how crappy their cars are compared to what's >available elsewhere, like we did with Japan
No, that's not what happened. Japanese manufacturers made cars in the US, to match US tastes. Japanese cars as sold in Japan, were not models Americans would buy.
>In the meantime, this incredibly short sighted protectionism will end just like >the last round did.
It'll end with...Chinese cars made in US factories w/ American workers?
Chinese V8 pickup trucks failing to win market share against the US competition?
That's not the history that I recall. Let's look at Honda, just as an example.
Honda started selling cars in the US in 1970, with their quirky, tiny, Japan-made N600.
The Civic didn't happen until 1973, and it was also a Japanese-built car. Bigger than the N600 but still very small by American standards, it was the right car at the right time for the oil crisis the US was beginning to face. They sold a lot of Civics to Americans, despite the strong anti-Japanese sentiment around that time.
It wasn't until 1982 that Honda started building cars in the States, with the introduction of the Honda plant in Marysville, Ohio that began building Accords.
But even then: They still didn't build all of the USDM Accords in Marysville; many were still built in Japan and imported. It took additional years for the transition to fully occur.
---
That's 12 years from the time that they started selling cars in the US, to the time when they began to build their US-market cars in the US.
(If 12 years sounds like a short period of time, remember: We've only had the Tesla Model 3 for about 9 years now.)
Total Civic sales in 1979 were less than 10% of the # of execrable X-body Chevy Citations, Pontiac Phoenixes & Buick Skylarks that GM moved. Civics were still a niche.
US cars in the late 70s and early 80s sucked, you just had to be there to know how bad they were.
The Japanese made cars for the US that were different than local cars, but they were also different from what the US was making.
The quality angle was true 10 years ago, but that's no longer the case. Chinese cars are now superior in some areas and inferior in others (you can feel that some finishing is incomplete), but on average (and especially considering the price) they're better. The gap in the inferior areas is very small, and I wouldn't be surprised if they fully surpass European cars this year, given the new models they're releasing.
I think Porsche is really in trouble here.
I’m not anti-EV but the electric Macan and Cayenne look awful. They are under equipped technologically relative to their Chinese peers (heck basically anything).
Porsche sort of sold its soul for this tech-forward design but it doesn’t deliver any meaningful benefits, these cars don’t even have level 2+ highway cruise control. In the meantime I get a bunch of crap screens and lose all the glorious physical buttons and I don’t even have a fun engine rumble to make up for it?
So, the cars are ugly and uncool (I grant a matter of taste), aren’t selling in their target market (China) won’t sell meaningfully in their backup market (US) and they’re behind GM, Tesla and BYD in all regards on quality of life stuff.
Not a recipe for endurance.
Being a customer for years, I have to politely disagree.
Design is obviously a totally personal matter of taste, but as they have made many iconic shapes, apparently they're in the broad opinion not too bad at it.
The main difference is driving. I have driven many cars in my life, from very cheap to very expensive. For me personally, Porsche is in my opinion comparable to using a Mac - they're one of the few who "get it right":
- The entire workmanship is fantastic—nothing wobbles and nothing rattles.
- Everything looks very harmonic, from interior to usability. Every button is where it has to be. Even the built-in entertainment system is highly usable (which in my opinion others like Mercedes never got right).
- And, most importantly, despite being ICE or EV, the whole driving experience is just lightyears away from many competitors. Whether it's a 911 or a 718, they are just a joy to drive. Even a Cayenne just doesn't feel like a bulky SUV. There seems to be a lot of engineering going into all of that, weight distribution, chassis tuning, etc.
Apart from that - again, having owned many cars in my life - they're the most service-unintense cars ever. They just - work. You change the oil, sometimes the tires and that's it. I never had a single bigger problem with them.
Is there a lot of stuff which they didn't get? Agreed. Would it be nice to have better self-driving options? Without a doubt, but that's just a question of time.
But at least you have to give them that they, in strong contrast to many other German car manufacturers, didn't miss the trend and started to produce sexy EVs (hello Taycan) from very early on.
As long as I can, I will stay a loyal customer to them. If you have never driven a Porsche, get a test drive. I can only highly recommend it.
PS: And double points if you can do it on the German Autobahn. Try driving 240+ km/h with any other large-volume-production car, you'll be sweaty. With a Porsche, it just feels joyful.
>Try driving 240+ km/h with any other large-volume-production car, you'll be sweaty.
This is just very much not true, Audi, Mercedes,Toyota, BMW breeze through it, hell my friends audi S4 from 2004 regularly shoots 240+ over the autobahn, and we never break a sweat.
That is not my personal experience. I get very often those cars of those other major German brands at SIXT car rental, and of course this is my personal opinion:
- BMW is indeed very nice, I agree. I also once had a 6 series convertible which was - apart from the very low consumption (Diesel) - really nice to drive. Their cars are indeed a good alternative at a lower price point.
- Audi is the utmost catastrophe. Apart from the abysmal navigation system, the car simply doesn't feel safe at higher speeds (had an A6, your mileage may vary with tuned S models). I didn't want to drive faster than 180km/h
- Same goes for Mercedes (drove C, E and S Classes). The entertainment system is straight from the 90ies and the steering gets super wobbly at higher speeds.
- Toyota - are you kidding me? Very reliable, good value, but nowhere near the driving capabilities of a BMW or Porsche.
Of course they are all nice cars and should do the job, especially in countries with speed limits - until 120 km/h that all doesn't matter. I'm just saying, if you really want (and can) go fast, most of those cars don't deliver in my opinion.
> Try driving 240+ km/h
This is an entertainingly German-centric answer.
My point is, just from my perspective (YMMV), the Porsche cars are pretty perfect. I have a hard time finding a car which behaves more precisely and reliably on the street, regardless of the speed, than a 911 or 718 - or a Taycan or Panamera.
That refers back to my original answer when the poster said Porsche are "in trouble" because they are "technologically underequipped" and "don't deliver meaningful benefits". There is a lot of stuff China and other carmakers haven't caught up to. Will they in the future? Maybe.
To take that German-centric thing out: Try going on a mountain road and have fun in the corners. I am sure, if you have multiple cars to do the same thing, the Porsche will rank pretty high.
In any case, of course, this is all a pretty niche market for people who love driving sports cars. In 99%, a Toyota can deliver exactly the same value for the base use case (going from A to B) for way less money.
After all, this is what the performance oriented cars by all German manufacturers are made for.
Even a VW Golf GTI will happily cruise at 250 km/h.
Engine-wise, yeah, it has the power. But try it, that's not something you really want to do.
Having driven a Macan EV recently, it was nothing but annoying coming from years of Porsche driving. Too many unnecessary changes from what was there standard controls. Too much screen use.
That is interesting. Thanks for sharing I was interested in trying out a Porsche. Do the oil changes and other maintenance items cost significantly more than other makers?
Unfortunately yes, my Porsche Cayman's service is usually at least twice that of my wife's BMW 4 series.
If you prefer dealer maintenance, definitely. And tires cost more and are used up quickly (though BEVs may be similar here).
Not really, I usually don't carry them out at Porsche itself, only the regular inspections.
I wanted to replace my gas Macan with the new EV one. After a test drive I decided to just keep the gas one.
As an EV it is excellent. But Porsche is known for engaging driver's cars, and without the visceral sounds and vibrations of an engine it is bland and boring. The flaws in a gas engine's power curve give it character. Letting the driver manage that power curve is fun. A perfectly linear sub-3s 0-60 with fake electric sport sound played through the speakers does nothing for me.
I'd have probably bought it at $75K, but at $125K it needs to be more special. Especially considering the rate at which they depreciate. Its not a surprise to me that their EVs aren't selling as well as hoped. The Taycan sure is pretty though.
You're just religious about your own preferences.
Prosche specifically is facing huge losses, and with this strategy is doomed to die. There are already rumors of potential bancrupcy.
EVs grew 20% globally in 2025, with developing markets surging 40%+.
When EVs under $100,000 can hit sub-2.5-second 0–60 mph (0–100 km/h), all this fake "benefit" talk about exhaust notes and luxury engine refinement sounds exactly like people cheering for Vertu golden buttons at the dawn of the iPhone era.
EVs are growing incredibly fast—despite the West's biggest EV supplier deciding to commit marketing harakiri by alienating half its customer base.
New battery tech has made EVs affordable, and that's why adoption will keep accelerating in China, the EU, and the rest of the world. There'll be some irrelevant fluctuations in the US, but those will eventually even out regardless—because the rest of the world and technological progress will move on with or without them.
we are on the edge of go-to-market of billions of dollars of investments into battery development. It will deliver both much cheaper where needed and more capable batteries on the market. Guess what it will do with legacy cars.
EVs as a whole are growing. Porsche however is struggling because of their "sports car" identity. Taycan sales dropped 22% year-over-year [0], and their 2025 EV sales only rose because the Macan EV is new and they discontinued the gas one in the EU. (Even then: Half of all Macan buyers worldwide went for the 11-year-old gas design over the EV.)
The market for EV sports cars is soft. The Rimac Nevera R broke 24 performance world records and yet nobody wants to buy it [1]. Even the CEO of Rimac has said people want an engine sound. Meanwhile Ferrari can launch an even more expensive gas car and it sells out before its officially announced [2].
I'm pro-EV and my partner owns one. They are practical appliances that are perfect for the 90% of people who just want to get from A to B. But the stats show that it's not just my personal preferences. The average sports car buyer wants an engine and exhaust.
My theory is that people buy mass-market Porsche cars because the 718/911 guys tell everyone how cool these cars are, but not everyone wants or needs a kidney-busting two-seater, so they compromise with a Panamera or Macan.
If there's no electric 718/911 version to hype them up, there’s not going to be any demand. There's also the issue that they're known for their small sporty cars, yet they're trying to sell 5m-long sedans and 'soccer mom' SUVs and failing at it.
The "soccer mom" SUVs are their best sellers and literally saved the company. I beg you to test-drive a Cayenne Turbo GT if you think they can't deliver a sports-car-like experience in a large SUV. Or a Macan GTS (which is only 7" longer than a 911 btw.)
The Taycan is pretty close to being an electric 911. There's a 718 EV coming out soon but Porsche realized there was not enough demand so now they're retrofitting a gas engine into the design.
The lack of demand for the 718 EV boils down to EVs being heavy, and therefore less chuckable than the gas one, and the lack of soul & engagement in cars without an engine. Solid state batteries will eventually solve the first problem. I'm not sure how we can solve the second one. Perhaps kids of today will grow up caring less about mechanical sounds.
> But Porsche is known for engaging driver's cars, and without the visceral sounds and vibrations of an engine it is bland and boring. The flaws in a gas engine's power curve give it character
Personally I experienced this the strongest in my friend's restored mk3 Ford Escort. I recall it as a feeling of not actually being inside a car due to the wind and engine noise.
Meanwhile the BMW 5 Series I rented a while ago didn't provide any of those feelings. Granted, it was a diesel automatic, but when I floored it, it just went and the engine noise was barely noticeable - at least compared to my poorly noise insulated daily Toyota.
The best thing about that car was that I could take my family on a 400km trip, the last 100km of which were mountain roads and not even break a sweat.
The thing is, driving on the road is not supposed to be fun. One should go to a racetrack (or simulator) to have fun.
Unless you live in a really remote and desertic place, there are just too much people on the road nowadays.
> driving on the road is not supposed to be fun.
Who says it's supposed to boring? It's supposed to be safe and you're supposed to drive with the consideration of others, but I don't think it's supposed to be either fun or boring, that's up to you.
I'm having a blast rolling down the highway in the middle of the night blasting music and singing, am I not allowed to do this because driving is supposed to not be fun?
I meant it shouldn't be the main purpose, that's it. Way too many people treat the roads as a playground disregarding the safety of others.
I am saying this as a pistonhead in remission.
Do you hate your job? Gun is where you find it and what you make of it. Everything you do should be fun or why do it?
If the process of driving itself is fun for you then great - have fun!
But what people usually mean by 'fun' driving is mostly just antisocial behaviour - too fast, loud brrm-brrm noises etc
Citation needed. Plenty of sports car drivers have fun every day without being antisocial at all.
You can have plenty of fun without putting other drivers in danger. I used to drive a NA Miata that took 9 seconds to get to 60 mph and it was the most fun car I've ever owned. But I'm a slow-car-fast person.
Most people can safely wring out their cars in 1st and 2nd on a highway on-ramp, or from a traffic light on an empty 55 mph country road. I own a fun weekend car that I take out at dawn on a Saturday to carve up a mountain pass - which is fun even at the speed limit. In a lightweight sports car with excellent brakes, I am safer than all the trucks I see on these roads.
okay but why would you get Porsche in the first place then?
Luxury sport cars are sold on 2 basis, a status symbol, and being driver's car. If you don't have the second and it's just another EV why bother ?
That is my point actually?
I am modtly getting my racing dose/fun from simulators these days but go-karts are cheap and fun in comparison of a road homologated luxury sportscar.
Because it’s fun just commuting to work in a car that is one of the best handling cars ever made?
I agree with this for the most part, though there are times and with specific cars that you can have a blast. I can have a lot of fun in an old M Coupe, or Miata.
I used to have a GT3...it was a dream car of mine and I finally got it. The sad reality was that in order to have fun with it on public roads I was either going to kill myself/someone else, or go to jail. The only way to really experience that car in a responsible way was to go to the track. Which I just flat out didn't have the time to do with young kids.
Things were very different 20-30 years ago. Roads were less crowded and people were much more respectful on the road. Now, especially where I live, it's a free for all Mad Max cosplay.
That you believe that is just sad. One doesn’t need to break the law to have fun in the right car.
I keep seeing "underequipped technologically relative to their Chinese peers" on HN. What kind of stuff is missing? This is not a loaded question, I only drive a couple times a month, and the vehicle I'm driving is an older Prius, so I probably lack imagination. EVs are supposed to be technologically pretty simple, most of an EV's value being in the battery packs. I've been thinking about upgrading, perhaps to a Nissan Sakura (which probably doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles either).
Now I kinda wish my Prius had a 3.5mm aux-in jack but I get by with an FM transmitter.
In terms of features I see on high end cars… (no clue if these are available in Chinese cars, just to help you get an idea of what exists)
1. Backup camera with lines that move as you turn the wheel
2. Camera setup that lets you see how close you are to curbs, other cars, etc. from a plethora of unexpected angles (you can get a top-down view of your car! Pretty cool.)
3. Automatic parking when parallel parking
4. “Reverse actions” feature, where you press a button after very carefully getting into a spot, and the car replays it in reverse to get you out of said spot
5. Lots of remote features tied to an app. The ability to look through cameras, auto-record videos when people get close, lock and unlock and view status of the car. Remote tracking via GPS in case it’s stolen.
6. Turn on your turn signal, your dash changes to a live video feed of that side of the car
7. Chairs with heating and cooling, massaging, and auto-inertia-damping features
8. Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay plus Android auto
9. Road-scanning cameras which adjust suspension live based on upcoming road conditions
10. Crash preparation features like Benz’s Pink Noise or auto-recording a minute of video to assist with crash investigations
There are probably may I’m forgetting.
> 5. Lots of remote features tied to an app. The ability to look through cameras, auto-record videos when people get close, lock and unlock and view status of the car. Remote tracking via GPS in case it’s stolen.
This is akin to spyware, since inevitably it is a cloud service using an onboard cellular modem.
I would personally rather have none of 1-10. What I do want in a high-end vehicle is things that are there for my benefit (heated steering wheel, heated/ventilated seats, spacious cupholders, etc.) not the manufacturer's.
I have 1 and 8 on my cheap RAV4 from 7 years ago. Heated seats too.
Not sure about 4 and 9, but the rest are available in US cars (not sure if any US car has all of them, though).
Some of these have been around for almost a decade. Not specific to EVs. I drive an ancient car (2003), but I've rented cars that have the rest.
I have 1,2,6 and 8 plus part of 5 and 7 (remote lock, unlock, status and GPS tracking, heated and cooled seats) on my 4-year old Hyundai Tucson. Not expensive and a very good value for money car. Made in Alabama.
huh. I don't want any of those things and i do have a porsche.
saw an xpeng playing music outside the car, not inside, for beach parties
and, this is not a joke, truly: the seat gave me a massage.
Lol, 1 to 4 is just called "knowing how to drive". These cameras aren't a serious value add unless you're driving a massive tank, err car.
Backup cameras have been legally required on new vehicles for like a decade. It is well understood to prevent accidents.
There are hundreds of millions of drivers with new ones entering and old ones exiting the roads all the time.
If you want to practically improve safety you have to make the vehicles safer, you can't just hope pointing fingers at bad drivers is gonna do anything.
The rear window in trucks and SUVs is above the head height of a small child. w/o a backup camera there is literally no way to see if a small child is behind you.
So many parents ran over their own child that backup cameras are now mandatory in the US.
Crazy to think that multiple countries chose to solve the danger of cars all turning into giant murder tanks was to add cameras rather than to classify the murder tanks as being too dangerous to drive.
That's why you check all around the car before setting off.
Unfortunately children playing in the yard have ample time to get behind the car between you checking it, entering the car, starting it, and reversing.
Yes, in principle one could take whatever other measures necessary to prevent such accidents. In reality, backup cameras save lives. Just like seatbelts, anti-lock brakes, crash safety standards, and other safety features that "Real Manly Drivers" protested against back in the day.
Children tend to move around.
Most people are just crap at parenting. Whenever I am moving a car backward to park or unpark my car, I ask everybody to stand at a specific place where I see them, regardless if they are adults or kids.
So yes everyone is right, yes a lots of people are just bad at taking basic safety measures but backup cameras are still a necessity because this will not change, it is even worse with people doomscrolling their smartphone while driving.
> Whenever I am moving a car backward to park or unpark my car, I ask everybody to stand at a specific place where I see them, regardless if they are adults or kids.
How does that help other people walking down a sidewalk?
or reversing in public where random kids could end up behind you I guess
Parking in a dense European city is much easier with the rear camera. The pure radar version is ok but the camera really allows you to use every inch.
> What kind of stuff is missing?
I'm in the market for buying a new car, either EV or hybrid. Currently have a Audi, been looking at various BYD models, particularly the new Touring one.
One important feature, that I didn't know I needed before I tried it, was in-seat AC, where the air from the AC hits the back and bottom, instead of just your arms and face. Living in a warm country, and spending most of the time in the car during the summer, this feature is something I really want now.
Heading to Audi and asking what the cheapest model available with that feature? Around 70K EUR. Doing the same but going to BYD: 35K EUR. And that's just considering that single feature, the same happens for almost everything. Want a HUD in the windshield? Audi adds 5K to the price, with BYD it's in the middle variants and up.
Basically, you get the same amount of "features" for half the price, and it's hard to just say "Well, I'm a fan of Audi so that's worth the markup". Still, there are many decisions that go into purchasing a car, not just the features, but I think that explains why you see that argument come up, because they do offer more features for cheaper than at least what the European car makers do.
I think this is one place where European automakers are going to have to adapt or die out. Even if they can get the motors, batteries, and charging systems to a competitive level, Chinese manufacturers include most """luxury""" features by default. European manufacturers go the other way, including the hardware but locking the entire thing behind microtransactions or "upgrades".
They're going to need to cover the losses they're compensating for with the ridiculous upgrade prices somehow or they're going to lose even more customers. The import tariffs raised to protect the European market from affordable Chinese cars aren't going to work forever.
This is mostly an issue with German cars. A lower-end Skoda comes standard with features that would cost half the car's price if optioned on a Mercedes.
Still, browsing the Skoda website, I see Skoda offering lane assist for 450 to 750 euros (one is a "plus" version for some reason), a "headlight assist" for 990 euros, and CarPlay/Android Auto support for 450 euros. 250 euros for heated seats, 350 for adding a phone charging port, 800 euros for satnav, 150 euros for a plastic tray between the seats. That is, of course, after selecting one of six "editions" of the same model that all come with different extras for a markup of several thousand.
The equivalent BYD comes with all of that included for free in the cheapest SKU. The biggest differentiator is that the heated seats are only available in BYD's most luxury version of the car, but the most luxury option is still 22% cheaper than the Skoda with equivalent options. BYD does charge more for a lick of paint, to be fair, so if you're looking for a specific colour you may pay a little more.
Perhaps BMW and Mercedes are worse at this, but the 150 euro plastic tray with cup holder says everything that needs to be said.
This is an odd one to take so long to "become normal" in luxury cars.
Lincoln started doing this about 20 years ago. You can buy Chevrolet pickup trucks with this feature. Of course my Polestar 2 (Swedish but made in China) has ventilation.
Now some might do true AC, while many just do ventilation, but either way it adds a lot of comfort if you're in a very warm cabin (or, say, have a huge panoramic sunroof.)
I think a few things.
1. They do not have robust self-driving capability. At this level of expense I expect hands-free major highway driving.
2. They’ve removed a lot of physical buttons that improve quality of life, the level of technology in the cabin is simply overwhelming.
3. They’ve done a great job with the driving experience of the EVs but they have poor range relative to the competition.
I have a 2022 Porsche 911. It has a lot of physical controls for things in the cabin like climate control, suspension settings, cruise control, dashboard view, and audio. The car also has an auto steer and cruise control option which will accelerate and brake for you while also keeping the car in the lane. It can go from a stop to whatever speed you set it to. It’s great for traffic on the highway. That’s not too shabby for a 2022 non EV car. Current model Mercedes have level 4 driving automation where you can take your eyes off the road. I don’t think Tesla even has this level of driving automation yet.
> That’s not too shabby for a 2022 non EV car
It very much is! (no offense) And EV vs ICE doesn't make a difference, the manufacturers put the same ADAS systems regardless of the powertrain.
BMW has had radar cruise control + lane keeping since 2016 I think? In 2019 they added full hands-free operation in highway traffic (up to 40 mph) as well as auto lane change when you tap the turn signal. In 2023 they have full hands free up to 85 mph on highways, plus auto lane change w/ navigation integration and auto-overtaking (car promps you to check the mirror, then changes lane completely touchless).
A frickin' 2020 Honda Civic has the same ADAS functionality as your '22 Porsche, even on the base trim ($21k). Porsche is way, way behind. And that's before you even get to all of the non-ADAS drivers assistance systems for parking, reversing, etc., which again the other Germans trash Porsche on.
Why would you care about ADAS on a drivers' car? Sure that might be useful on a Camry or another point A -> point B appliance, but I doubt Porsche buyers give any thought to those features.
Porsche buyers don't want self driving. The button thing is industry wide MBA group think that is being walked back. Their haptic buttons are actually not bad. Car manufacturers are shit at software, presumably because they don't feel the need to pay top euro for talent. Again an industry wide syndrome. Heck GM think it's smart to delete Apple carplay from their vehicles. The only electronics feature all buyers want.
I hate touch/sensor buttons and sliders. Give me back my physical buttons and spinning controls. Also, same for electrical speedometers/tachometers, etc
See this MKBHD video for an idea of features in Chinese EVs.
Watched it! I know it's from a US perspective, but where I live (Japan), $42000 is quite a lot! Definitely premium car territory. (E.g., Lexus RX base model)
IMO the car has a lot of bells and whistles that many drivers (probably!) don't really care about. But I guess car fans like this kind of stuff. The active noise cancelling feature might be nice, but wouldn't be surprised if we see regulation on that matter at some point. You kind of need to be alert of your surroundings, etc.
This is a car that is more expensive than a Tesla Model 3 in the Chinese market, with more or less the same features.
I don't want to make an exhaustive list, the summary is that standard features on many new cars are expensive options on Porsche's. And that's if they're available at all. Adaptive cruise control is one example.
Where I live, luxury cars are just status now. I don't think that's enough to keep gen Z and gen A interested.
Clearly porsche is missing the built in karaoke.
There's only one real Porsche, a gasoline-engined 911.
As much as I'm gung-ho about the world electrifying transport, I agree with you here. Those Porsche SUV's just look awful, whatever the drivetrain. If I'm gonna splurge on a Porsche, I'll want the real thing. And if I don't want a 911, well there are a lot of other brands making more sensible vehicles.
(Of course, if a lot of other people share my extremist views, that's pretty bad for Porsche the company. They likely can't survive just producing 911's. Oh well, I'm not here for corporate charity anyway.)
Nowadays the 718 might be more of a Porsche than the 911
It definitely is, especially for the price.
But the 911 range has a lot of bandwidth and there are models that go from minimalist driver’s car (911 T) to Touring/GT (most 911s) to race car for the street (GT2/GT3). But you definitely pay to step outside the GT box.
The new Cayenne seems to be a step in the right direction for VAG.
The big challenge Porsche has is getting rid of its shrinking ICE business. Europe is a bit ahead here of the US. China even further. Local Chinese luxury brands run circles around Porsche in terms of luxury, performance, etc. That's why they are struggling there. Their cars just aren't good enough.
The way forward for Porsche would be to rip the band aid off and focus on just EVs. Leave the ICE market to hedge funds. Those are good at milking dying businesses that shrink year on year. They need to do some EV only models that are heavily optimized at being good at just that. Leave the SUV crossover BS. to all the traditional brands and make a proper sports car that goes fast and far. A little autobahn monster. That would restore their reputation for delivering unapologetically high performance cars that are slightly dangerous and exciting.
ICE is dead. That's grand daddy's car at this point. That's not something somebody born this century is going to lust after and put on their wall (in poster form). And Porsche needs something that young people would want if they had the money. Their current lineup is a bit too conservative and boring. Sensible cars if they'd be half the price. But they are just too expensive and unremarkable to sell well. You can do better for the same money.
What is crazy about some of these old car brands is that they have some IP that would sell like hotcakes. Aircooled 911s went from 30k cars to 130k cars on the used market over the last 10 years. If they managed to work around crash regulations, maybe with some stroking of Donalds ego right now, they'd be making money hand over fist off those old designs.
I can't exactly remember the situation but I'm pretty sure there was a car company that did something like this in recent history, restarting a production run on a classic model and selling it out.
No. These cars are desirable and valuables as collectibles for the very reason they are a dying breed and we can't won't make them as they used to.
SuperfastMatt is buying a Cayman! I think they will be fine...
Porsche is loosing billions and people start talking they are caput(bancrupt) :)
And Apple is going to fail.
EV cars are mostly just appliances now. Not sure how the prestigious Porsche badge (or any other really) can stand out into the future.
According to (enthusiast) car magazines, Porsche BEVs are still better at being Porsches than most of the competition.
Not sure if you have been into an appliance shop lately, but for any given appliance there are options in every price bracket.
Making things that...track better than an appliance.
There's probably still plenty of value in the name, who knows if the audience who are impressed if you say "I've got a Porsche" vs "I got a Zeekr/BYD/Xiaomi" is growing or shrinking, if it shrinks fast enough, then Porsche is in trouble.
It's like bragging about having a Hermes bag vs a Temu brand bag. Yeah it's all irrational, but if the world was a rational place we'd not have a man-child threatening wars and invasion because he didn't get the peace prize he wanted...
Trends and perceptions can change fast in China's market.
The US/EU/JP manufacturers are half-pregnant, they have engine and other mechanical production plants that will become stranded assets as BEVs don't need engines, gearboxes or the other hydraulic/cooling etc infrastructure that an ICE vehicle needs.
Electric motors are essentially maintenance free over the life of a BEV, same for the batteries. The maintenance is for brake pads/rotors, but regen braking also avoids that.
There is the passenger heat pumps for heat/cooling, and the lighting, but LED lighting also requires minimal maintenance.
That cuts out a large chunk of the automotive industry in general.
US/EU/JP manufacturers are having to handle a major market disruption, independent of whether or not CN is leaping over them.
> Electric motors are essentially maintenance free
They require maintenance, although less than an ICE, but drive train repairs are not as uncommon as you might think. Manufacturers are always going to pinch pennies.
> That cuts out a large chunk of the automotive industry in general.
Hardly. You've removed the engine, fuel and exhaust system. You still need literally everything else. Windows and motors, doors and locks, wheels and hubs, seats and accessories, gauge clusters and radios, environmental controls, differentials and oil changes, the list goes on and on.
You deliver them the same way, you sell them the same way, you license them into the system the same way.
> US/EU/JP manufacturers are having to handle a major market disruption
That was called COVID. They all handled it badly save Toyota. The oil companies have far more to worry about.
This is not a market disruption, this is a supply chain change that is not going to be delayed by artificial tariffs or other protectionist attempts.
Post COVID was getting back to what was before, this is the equivalent of the introduction of Ford mass production techniques on the previous industry of coach building.
ICE engine parts are a major ongoing expense but also profit centre for dealers and an entire industry on their own.
So there's entire supply chains that will be disrupted.
How many engine plants are going to be needed going forward?
Australia went through this wrench back in 2014 when our local car industry collapsed after the government withdrew a measly amount in annual subsidies.
Fortunately it was a 3 year process that played out that allowed adjustments.
That had a major knock on effect of the loss of roughly 50K manufacturing jobs and industries had to pivot.
The US/EU/JP manufacturers are having trouble pivoting, the US because its car industry is entirely about trucks/SUVs, EU because its premium for manufacturing is rapidly eroding, and JP because they seem to be having trouble actually manufacturing EVs.
CN and KR is where the leaders are now.
You wish. These EV get charged $15k more compared what they used to be with their gas models with crap touch screens, stupid ass voice controls: things that when broken are hard to repair and costly, the battery, the range. Keep dreaming
My last MOT in a petrol engine required suspension, tyres and lights. Electric wouldn’t change any of that
Lights with LEDs are likely to not need maintenance.
Suspension and tyres might actually need more frequent maintenance because of the extra weight of an EV.
But how often does suspension require actual maintenance?
When your LED brake light goes out, you have to purchase an entire assembly as the LED's are part of the PCB. There are no "bulbs" for a few dollars. And with the matrix LED's a few may go out, now your brake light "sort of" works, so it's even harder to justify replacing.
>Electric motors are essentially maintenance free over the life of a BEV, same for the batteries.
You had me until "same for the batteries." The batteries do pretty well, but they are quite the gamble.
Evidence so far says they are not a gamble at all, and common (required?) eight year warranties on 80% life remaining are on all BEVs, plus record show that BEVs tend to to retain that 80% range at ten years. The gamble might be in whether the batteries have manufacturing defects, but warranty and recalls cover that, and as Samsung showed, can happen to even smaller, cheaper items.
Porsche was on the brink of bankruptcy. Then they started making SUVs. It turned out the SUVs are the ones that are bringing in all the cash to the company.
The audience of Porsche SUVs (cayenne, macan) care about signaling wealth via the badge. But they mostly want an everyday car for their commute, groceries / kid pickup.
No wonder the EVs options sell better. They have the badge, and are better at everyday tasks.
The 911 will stay gas powered (maybe e fuel at some point if mining of oil stops), because the target audience cares equally for signaling as well as the driving experience.
The EV options sell better in Europe because they completely stopped selling the ICE Macan due to EU cybersecurity regs. In North America (the only market that hasn't seen a decrease in sales), they did a 180 and promised to keep selling the ICE SUVs into 2030 because EV adoption has massively disappointed. The new K1 is now going to be sold with a combustion engine first instead of as a fully-electric.
Doesn't it include PHEV cars? I don't spot EV Porsches too often in one of central European capitals.
Hmm this comment gives the impression that electric Porsches are bad to drive and are only bought for the badge and convenience, like the SUV:s. I haven't driven a Taycan so can't say but I would assume it's not so. (And also it doesn't look like a convenient car.)
The Taycan is the ev version of the Panamera. They are in the grand tourismo category. Aka 4 doors, plenty of storage space, great for traveling.
Yes they are very functional compared to a 911. No they don’t drive like a 911.
Do they drive better than an Audi A7, Mercedes GT, BMW 8 series? That is debatable.
I own a Panamera and my husband owns an M850i. The Panamera drives like a Porsche, while the M850i is comparatively a boat. I'm not a big fan of how much suspension travel the M850i has; the Panamera has exactly the right amount to feel sporty but still comfortable, just like our 718 has.
Car enthusiasts caring about the driving experience doesn't just mean drivability. Engine sound is a huge part of it. All the classic Porsche 911 have flat-6 engines which make a distinctive sound that is totally part of the brand.
FTR I don't care about this myself, I'm happy with my EV. But the importance of this aspect is easily missed by people not part of the target demographic.
It feels like engine sound has become more important to these people since EV's entered the market. I'm sure it was there before but not to the same extent.
The huge uproar about the 718 having a flat four turbo engine was mostly about the sound. (I don’t have a problem with it.) I think it has always been there.
It became more of a selling point as regulation came for it. OPF, stricter modification control, etc. Prior it didn't matter as much since it was always decent and you could do whatever you want to it. Now, a pops and bangs tune with a straight pipe will get your car impounded in most countries the first time a cop sees/hears you.
Also Porsche SUVs regularly rank at the top of luxury SUV reviews. I've never driven one but the consensus is that they're great - it's not just badge engineering.
The Cayenne has no right to be as fast as it is. The stupid thing will powerslide out of corners at 120 kmh and fly at hot hatch speeds through twisty cobblestone roads. The brakes were also wonderful and surprisingly cheap for the size. Didn't have air suspension so it rode like a fast car though.
The key part is electrified and not pure electric.
On this note: It was recently reported that Electrified vehicles in general outsold conventional ICE powered vehicles in Australia, claiming it has reached a 'tipping point' with consumers:
Consumers don't realize they are getting the worst of both worlds with added weight, complexity, repairs, inefficiency, and costs along with potential reliability (ex-Toyota) Not to mention studies that show PHEV owners frequently don't plug in.
Well those owners are idiots. That says nothing about the car. You can't exclude Toyota when you make the claim that hybrids are unreliable and inefficient either. They have proven that they can be reliable and efficient.
Hybrids aren't running around doing 30 miles a day with a 300 mile battery like most EVs. Talk about inefficient!
How many miles of long trips? A quick search gives me half of them are long distance (50+ miles).
Since the short trips can all be done very efficiently on battery (recovering all the braking, too), I guess the weight isn't much of an issue for commuting if you can have the rest -half of the total driven miles- on EV with a full battery vehicle.
I wish I could find numbers on eCO2/miles for the short vs long trips.
The problem is the limited charging infrastructure. Hybrid owners don't need to plug in for the vehicle to function so they yield available chargers to actual EVs. To get past this you would need ubiquitous charging infra.
PHEV owners only need to charge at home (and if they can’t, don’t need a PHEV) and use electric power for local commuting.
The future of BEVs (and the most practical today) is also charging at home, and available chargers can grow slowly with BEVs used for road trips. Tesla is pretty close to there already. So, chargers don’t need to ubiquitous, just a bit more available on less common road trip routes.
My main goal with buying an EV is to give the middle finger to the oil industry as they have meddled with the world too much.
They screwed public transit and entire nations just for profits. I love my Subbie and I'll keep that until it breaks apart and replace it with an EV. Maybe today there's many downsides to an EV, but I hope it evens up and maybe becomes even better to get one.
My Outlander rarely needed repairs and I always plugged it in. The car even complained about me needing to use the gazoline in the tank because it risked getting old in the tank and needed to be replaced. That was a great car. My new EV, a Subaru Solterra is great too though.
> Subaru Solterra
Looking at Doug Demuro reviews it has one the worst weekend score and one the best daily score. Amazing.
Nah, PHEVs are the perfect compromise for lots of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to go all electric. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Indeed. I cannot charge my car at home so I drive a PHEV. I use public chargers when one is available on my street. If not, no problem. I’d say about 80% of my daily driving is done on the battery, which is a lot better than 0!
That’s simple not true. Studies have shown that historically hybrid vehicles have fewer issues than any other type, possibly because reducing the ICE use increases reliability overall more than adding the minimal EV complexity.
>Hybrids, which combine a gas engine, electric motor, and battery, have 15 percent fewer problems on average than gas-only cars. EVs and PHEVs have about 80 percent more problems on average than gas-only cars.
>“Many of the problems with EVs and plug-in hybrids are because they are newer designs compared to gas technology, so some kinks still continue to be worked out,” says Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. “By comparison, hybrids have been around for nearly three decades, and the technology is tried and true.”
About 2/3 of these are BEVs and the other 1/3 are PHEVs:
> In 2025, 34.4 per cent of Porsche cars delivered worldwide were electrified (+7.4 percentage points), with 22.2 per cent being fully electric and 12.1 per cent being plug-in hybrids.
I never understood the big push for full EVs over hybrid. Roughly speaking, a hybrid gets double the MPG of an ICE car, and a BEV gets double the MPGe of a hybrid. But BEVs require you to add a plug to your garage to get a rapid refuel, when your whole neighborhood gets them it strains the grid, you are range limited, etc...
My hunch is there are some laws or regs somewhere that kept hybrids from really taking off (or rather, they were taking off.. then suddenly were suppressed). Which is why I don't interpret headlines like these to mean "consumers have crossed the tipping point" - in many cases it is incentive-driven, not pure consumer demand.
The EU is committed to the full EV route and that is not changing. But it's not taking hold in the US, and over the next few years the big thing we will see being sold is actually EREVs, which are BEVs with a gas generator attached to charge the battery (yes, really).
Source: in the industry
> I never understood the big push for full EVs over hybrid.
Being able to shed the ICE bits from the car's powertrain eliminates multiple entire classes of maintenance burden. With hybrid and EREV you get the problems of both types of powerplant and drivetrain, and even though ICE has evolved to be fairly reliable, it's still a very complicated assembly and basic wear-and-tear still is still a challenge.
There will probably be parts of the country where hybrid or EREV make sense for some period of time due to the distances involved and the incredible energy density of gasoline, but a lot of the driving that happens day to day can already be handled with pure EVs as long as you have a 120V plug accessible to your car.
> Being able to shed the ICE bits from the car's powertrain eliminates multiple entire classes of maintenance burden.
I don't know but is this a uniquely US (and/or a few other such countries) thing, because of the high volume of daily driving?
Here in India we send our (ICE) car in for a service somthing like once or twice a year? And that too is mostly because "the engine sounds a bit off", not "the car isn't starting".
Less maintenance sure is nice, but I don't think it's consciously a "problem" for many.
Same here in the US - 10,000 miles per year, so an $75 oil change every six months. Change the spark plugs myself every 4 years for $20. No big deal.
All the other maintenance I do would be the same with an electric vehicle (suspension fixes, flat tires / new tires, brake pads / brake fluid, etc).
ICE car maintenance isn’t a problem for me either. That alone isn’t going to make me buy a new $40k EV with no physical buttons because it’s one giant unusable touch screen that is a safety hazard to me and anyone else around me.
(Looking at you Polestar - your entire interior UX is garbage.)
Hybrids are a better option for me since I don’t have a charger at my house nor do I want one, but they’re also very expensive.
ICE engines aren't a problem right up until they are.
I had one car where the timing belt broke unexpectedly and because it was an 'interference' engine, that led to damage to the engine head and a piston rod (and could easily have been bad enough to have been irreparable had the timing been a bit different).
Second car, had a loud noise from the engine that resolved on its own while driving up a hill. That car model later has a recall for the engine catching fire. Did I just get lucky? Who knows.
My first car (a minivan), the rear exhaust plate fastener broke while driving and make a noise that could be heard from a mile away... right as I was driving past a bunch of cops on heightened DUI enforcement night. Now I wasn't drinking but I still didn't appreciate my car not only breaking ostentatiously, but buying me a ticket in the process.
A fourth car, also a minivan, had an issue with its automatic transmission where it would struggle to upshift going from first to second gear sometimes. At least once every couple weeks, sometimes more frequent. It was never resolved by the manufacturer or any mechanic we could take it to before we sold it.
Now I did make sure to mention that ICE has evolved a high degree of reliability for a reason, but the fact is that even when the odds of things going bad is low, when there are a multitude of different independent ways for things to go bad (as there are with an ICE engine and drivetrain), the birthday paradox makes it inevitable that something will eventually be an issue.
And even though I had an issue like that with every ICE car I have ever owned, even those I didn't have to take to the mechanic for an issue outside of routine maintenance twice a year. They were more reliable than that, but that wasn't enough to keep them from falling prey to various issues.
Don't most people already have a plug in their garage? All mine certainly have. There's no need to get full EVSE for most people, a 2.4kW outlet as found almost everywhere outside North America will easily handle daily driving needs for anyone who's not in a travelling job.
Also if everyone in your neighbourhood turning on a space heater strains the grid you have bigger problems.
Utilities have plenty of ways to solve that. We already have electric water heaters on demand controlled circuits and electricity billing that incentivises off-peak use.
And as for range? 400km is plenty for all but one trip a year, if that's an issue for your use perhaps EVs are not for you.
44 million US households have no garage, including ~2/3 of renters
Sounds like a market opportunity for kerb-side, low speed, charging points.
Not to mention parking garages for daytime parking at work.
Not to mention mall parking lots.
The garage is an obvious starting point, because your car spends a lot of time there, but there are lots of opportunities elsewhere.
Once upon a time 44 million households didn't have electricity. Things change.
I have no garage and work from home. So no workplace to charge.
So now you’ve added another thing I have to worry about - finding charging somewhere along my 10 minute errand route?
EVs are a bad solution to a problem I don’t have. Hybrids are much better.
For the small amount of driving I do, driving my commuter ICE car with a tiny, 35-mpg 4 cylinder engine is fine… why are the EV cultists so convinced their way is the only way and the rest of us are living in prehistoric times?
Plus, your EV is heavier than my ICE, so your tires shed rubber particulate more quickly than my tires due to the weight, which is also an environmental pollutant (that is toxic enough to kill wildlife, btw)
>> I have no garage and work from home. So no workplace to charge.
So now you’ve added another thing I have to worry about - finding charging somewhere along my 10 minute errand route?
Your car lives somewhere when you're not doing errands. Expect a charging point there as demand for that grows.
Not to mention charging points at the mall, shops, restaurants and so on.
Clearly it will be a long time before EV replaces ICE completely. There was lots of horse infrastructure which changed when cars appeared.
But the pendulum is swinging and each motion there opens up new opportunities.
Also each motion has an impact on existing infrastructure. Expect gas stations to be less common, ditto for mechanics and so on.
>EV's produce 38% less tire & brake dust than ICE vehicles.
>non-exhaust emissions on an ICE vehicle are roughly 1/3 brake dust, 1/3 tire dust and 1/3 road dust. EV's have almost no impact on road dust, 83% lest brake dust and 20% more tire dust.
> though much of this is attributable to a vehicle mix that is more focused on larger vehicles, as it seems like every EV manufacturer is making huge SUVs and few are making small cars
My point exactly. Your new EV has more tire dust (and probably more brake dust) than my old, smaller ICE.
Hence the urgent need for charging infrastructure: Incentives to install charges in homes and rental unit garages and at curbsides.
Isn't it a lot easier just to sell people hybrids instead?
In the short run. When I replaced my minivan with a PHEV my gas bill went down $200/month, my electric bill went up $30. Chargers where people park is a long term investment in lower costs for everyone. Hopefully chargers are everywhere in the future so we don't need the ICE at all. (I just bought a EV, I've barely had it a week and already have run out of battery - I was just able to reach a charger, but it required changing my route since there were none along the route I wanted)
No. It's really easy to install charging points on office parking space and supermarket. You don't need to plug at home when half of the day the car is parked at places with chargers.
Comments like this are bubble coded. Plenty of people don't park at an office, don't park at a supermarket, certainly not for half the day
Not half a day, but BEVs are impractical today if you don’t have home charging, but throw in restaurants, movie theaters, doctor’s and dentist’s offices, and L2 charging starts to become a practical alternative for many.
Yeah but don't we need to stop burning fossil fuels?
No? I haven't seen a "peak oil" article or prediction in at least ten years. It would be GREAT to reduce our dependence, to make them cleaner, to make them more efficient, and to increase the use of renewables. But who is saying we have to "stop" oil and gas?
I don't think reaching peak oil is the worry. The worry is climate change.
> But who is saying we have to "stop" oil and gas?
People who are concerned about climate change? Should we not be?
Global warming.
Absolutely. And Toyota agrees with you.
The people in this thread have lost their minds in a cult of EV.
I don’t know why EV has to be the answer to every question. There are plenty of economical hybrid options.
> There's no need to get full EVSE for most people,
It's a lot more comfortable though. It's been a great addition to the home to get an EVSE, even a small single-phase one.
> Don't most people already have a plug in their garage?
Good point, most people without garages should continue buying hybrid or ICE, because EVs aren't for them yet.
I dont have a garage, but there are at least 15+ curb side chargers in 250 meters walking distance of my house. No problem charging my Tesla.
How is the pricing? IME public charges are 2-3x as expensive as charging at home.
Company car, i don't see the bill, but i think it's about e0.46 - e0.50/kWh.
What about charging at work?
Yes, there are chargers there as well, i guess around 40 in the parking garage.
Nice
When will EVs be for them?
I was being a bit facetious, but I guess when either they're fortunate to live extremely close to a charger, or they have one in building, but then it seems like they'd be fighting for parking and charging space, which doesn't seem to me to compete favorably in terms of practicality. Or the housing market finally crashes and there's a viable path out of renting for those that want to do so.
When L2 errand charging becomes enough that they can keep up with daily travel by plugging in where they go and park for a while - restaurants,
movie theaters, retail stores, doctor and dentist offices, etc.
That way I wouldn't need to stress over finding a charging place so often.
Yes it's so easy - Just tell the butler to put it on charge when you arrive home.
>Also if everyone in your neighbourhood turning on a space heater strains the grid you have bigger problems.
Welcome to Texas.
And with Texas a 200 mile+ driving day is just more common than people from smaller places experience.
People can't possibly be driving 200 miles a day, that can't be real.
Sure it can :).
Probably not 7 days a week, but a couple days a week, sure.
And of course not everyone. Maybe 10%?
Not that it matters. What do I care about the needs of some Texans? (I mean that non perjorativly). I mean just because ranchers still need horses doesn't mean the rest of us have to use them.
The world will go EV, even much of the US will go EV, regardless of what some folks need.
If you have to drive 200 miles a day to go to/come back from work its a policy failure and we should care about it.
Almost nobody is driving 200 miles to get to work. Almost everybody will move if their commute is more than half an hour - this is through out history and includes hunter gathers deciding to move the tribe, peasants walking to their field... There are a few people driving that far in the US, but either they are planning to move soon, or they don't expect the job to last long.
There are a lot of people driving more than 200 miles a day for work though. Many of them are in cars because their unique skills are why they need to be there (as opposed to delivery drivers who are bringing cargo).
There are also people who drive a long distance once a week. I know of a rural hospital that pays a lot of doctors to drive in on Thursday so locals don't have to go to the city. (they keep an ER, but the rest of the hospital is empty other than a few nurses the rest of the week)
So what is the limit of days you drive 200+ miles per year that make a full EV make sense?
In an average year I'll have 40+ days where I drive that much. Not for work, just for doing random things.
>a policy failure and we should care about it.
We should, but we won't because Oil/Gas/ICE cars spend an epic fuckload telling you that anything not related driving more is communism.
Every time an EV driver charges their car at home, a gas station loses a customer.
Eventually this compounds and gas stations start closing.
That accelerates the switch to EVs because gas becomes hard to find. Which accelerates gas station closures, and so on.
The point at which it becomes impractical to drive a gas-fuelled car is approaching. It will hit different countries at different times, but it's there. 10 years, 30 years, whatever, but it's coming.
Long before that point, a hybrid is just an EV that has to carry around a chunk of useless engine that is hard to fuel.
How has this played out in Norway? (If you know) They're at 90% EV market share, right?
In US, gas stations barely make any profit on gas, its all from the convenience store, beer, water, lottery tickets, trinkets, souvenirs, etc. Costco, HEB, Walmart, etc also have gas and can run it as a loss leader for customers to compete with Amazon. As the number of gas consumers go down, gas stations everywhere will start shutting down, except the Costco/HEB/Walmart, because gas stations can't compete with those prices.
The U.S. saw over 210,000 stations in the early 1990s, dropping to around 145,000 by 2022, and potentially as low as 115,000 by 2020, according to various data points. Some estimates suggest a potential 50% reduction in traditional stations by 2050 in some regions: https://boosterusa.com/from-the-experts/the-inevitable-death...
Last time I read the financial reports for a gas station it was about 1/3 each, gas, tobacco, and food. Tobacco has gone way down since then, but the other two are still important. Gas is low margin, but high volume and so they make a lot of profit on it.
Might be 90% of current sales. Still a lot of ICE cars on the road.
Yes, that's what I meant. Was just curious how the market for gas has changed (or not) in NO given that.
In the US the average car is 12 years old. I don't know Norway, but I expect similar. Which is to say I don't expect this to have made any difference in the number of gas stations yet. Gas station owners are watching numbers, but and are likely to open less in the future (not zero, some new development/locations will be important, but some locations that previously would have got one will not longer be worth the investment. Or maybe they put in the station without gas pumps - people still need those snacks (again I don't know the market in Norway, in the US that is how it would be).
Gas stations are also trying to figure out how charging fits in. While people are expected to charge at home, there will still me some demand for on the road charging. This is a place that hasn't worked out yet (I personally expect people will go for a nicer meal and sit down for an hour charge - but this might be my bias)
Quick AI search suggests average car age in Norway to be 11.1-11.3 years, so indeed quite similar.
As for what would happen with gas station when EV's dominate, what already seems to be in progress here (not due to EV's, but other factors in the market) is that the "traditional" gas station serving stale coffee, snacks, and windshield wiper fluid are on the way out, replaced by either unmanned cold stations with just the pumps, or then by major roads large full-featured mini shopping malls with groceries, half-decent restaurant (sometimes several), and other shops. I think in a future EV world the cold stations would disappear but the higher end service centers would do fine.
Good question, I have no idea.
> BEVs require you to add a plug to your garage to get a rapid refuel
You hardly ever need a rapid refuel in your garage though. That's where your car spends most of its hours.
Even in the US a regular wall outlet is enough - most people
don’t commute far enough every day to need more than L1 charging overnight to keep up.
The main issue will always be price. Whether that's purchase price, resale, or maintenance. Even the budget brand cars from South Korea and Ford can figure out the basics of interior/exterior design where customers are happy. That mostly just leaves the price and it's only gone up.
Car prices have increased well above the rate of inflation over the last decade and even used cars are more expensive than ever. Average new car price is $50k, mostly because EVs are so expensive https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a69047202/average-new-car-...
>Car prices have increased well above the rate of inflation over the last decade
This is a fair concern, but also, looking at the rise of average car prices is like looking at the rise of average iPhone prices. That is to say, cars (and iPhones) are providing increasingly premium offerings that didn’t exist decades ago. If you look at the entry levels of both these things, you find that the bottom-line price broadly keeps pace with inflation. And for cars, that’s with the addition of now-standard safety and convenience features. When you match cars feature-for-feature (an unrealistic comparison, as there aren’t really bare-bones cars on offer anymore), you’d see that cars are increasing in price much more slowly than inflation, and in other words, are effectively cheaper. Ultimately, whether car prices are rising or falling depends a lot on how you calculate things.
I’ll also add that EV pricing doesn’t have to mean insane car costs. The US market has the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf each selling for about $30k new and can be readily bought for half that with used inventory.
> The main issue will always be price.
You're right. There isn't a single legacy auto manufacturer in the US (Ford, GM, Stellantis) that can profitably sell an EV. Yet they make them anyway, and sell them for huge losses ($billions per year) because they have to meet mandates.
For foreign (read Chinese) cars a big piece of the price charged to US customers is the tarrifs (taxes) which US customers pay.
Elsewhere in the world EV prices are steadily coming down. They're not as low as ICE yet, and maybe never will be, but a nice entry level ICE car here is circa $15k, and a nice EV entry level is circa 25k.
Factor in fuel and maintenance costs and the real price is getting very close....
A bit sad that you're in the industry and you don't understand why pure EVs are better than hybrids.
Full EVs:
Less moving parts = less maintenance required = less issues to worry about (think no oil changes, no timing belt changes, no spark plug replacements, no belt/filter changes, no exhaust system checks, etc).
Also zero emissions = better air quality around you.
Bonus: it's like waking up with a full take of gas every morning
I've owned my full EV for almost 10 years now and had 0 maintenance done whatsoever (apart from tire rotation and window wiper fluid replacement). I would never go back to an ICE vehicle.
> Full EVs: Less moving parts = less maintenance required = less issues to worry about (think no oil changes, no timing belt changes, no spark plug replacements, no belt/filter changes, no exhaust system checks, etc).
The above is a tiny part of the costs of an ICE. Sure you have to do it, but either it isn't common, or it is cheap. ICEs have gotten very reliable over the decades.
Meanwhile most of the parts of a car a common between an ICE and EV. You have tires either way, which need to be rotated (do you?) Shocks/struts, rust, tie rods, AC compressors, just to pick a few random ones.
I also can't help but think but the decade over decade improvement in EV goodies is going to be steep: more sensors, more ability if not to fully self-drive then to take over this aspect of driving (like backing up), etc.
>> I never understood the big push for full EVs over hybrid
Weight, space and reliability.
Dragging that generator (and fuel) around costs weight and space, reducing range. Exhaust, fuel tank, radiator- all the support systems the ICE motor needs.
Which leaves less space for batteries, which reduces range.
Plus, the maintenance burden is still there. All those ICE parts still need all the maintainence etc that full ICE needs. One of the joys of EV is that maintainence is sooo much simpler.
So yes, hybrid is much more efficient than gas only, but a poor cousin of full EV.
By contrast full EV has range limitations. And yes distances in Europe are much shorter than the US. No that's less of an issue there. But even there we're seeing range go up, and charging come down.
Don’t full battery packs weigh more than an ICE system? Plus, weight is a minimal factor in efficiency anyway.
Today, a PHEV is the best of all world’s, but full parity for BEVs (in the US) is almost here. Reliable trip charging (NACS, SuperCharger network) and available destination charging will be enough pretty soon.
The weight I'm referring to is the weight of both systems, which is typically heavier than 1 system.
In terms of ev weight overall, it's typically close to ice weight. (Obviously a lot of differences between vehicle class and range).
An ev has motor, batteries, plus controllers. Ice has engine, gearbox, fuel tank, radiator [1], exhaust.
[1] Evs also have a radiator, but its a much smaller system running at lower Temps, with less water.
I'm converting an old vehicle now to EV and the overall weight difference is not significant.
I rented a hybrid recently while my car was in for a service. Picked it up, drove home (25 mins on motorway) then returned it the next day. It spent all of that time burning petrol while popping up notices about all the reasons it couldn’t use electricity right now (too cold, too fast etc).
All ICE cars should have been hybrid from 5-10 years ago but it is a stepping stone we should already be stepping off.
Its not an unsurmountable problem as Americans think. Just works like how you plug in your phone. Most of the world has electricity at home.
My uncle works in the industry and was getting a new car recently. His two options were all electric or all ICE, because from his experience, EHEVs have the problems of both ICE and BEV vehicles.
His experience is biased because studies have shown that hybrids have fewer issues than pure ICE or pure BEV.
This comes off like "I never understood why not everyone still uses landlines".
Well, a hybrid doesn't solve the problem. We don't need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need to zero them out. You can't do that if you sometimes burn gas.
You know car emissions are like 15% total greenhouse gas emissions in the US right? And half that worldwide.
This is just the most visible source for a bunch of people who have made their conclusion unencumbered by the data.
The emissions from powering and heating your house are several times what your car emissions are.
So go solve that one and leave my Corolla alone.
That is some whataboutism.
You do realize that net zero homes are buildable? Even in surprisingly challenging climates.
There are so many ways to make better use of the energy we have available than to waste a bunch of it to pollute the air.
Zero greenhouse emissions isn't a remotely achievable goal.
I hope you have never run a technology project this way by starting with a goal that simply can't be accomplished; you would have set it up to fail, demoralized your team, and chased the wrong priorities.
The goal is net zero, meaning, emissions added = emissions removed. There must be an allowance for some emissions. Industrial human life cannot continue without some amount of greenhouse emissions.
For that goal, I am way better off driving less than buying a new EV - it releases greenhouse gases to produce the plastic in your Tesla and the battery in your Nissan Leaf.
I walk to the supermarket. I work from home. I don't eat red meat. I'm careful with my home electricity consumption. For the third time in this thread: my old 4 cylinder Corolla is not the thing standing between us and existential doom. Focus on more important things.
I don't understand the myopic focus on car emissions: is it because Elon talks about it? Is it because it's the most easily seen for you?
Net zero is what I'm talking about.
Your Corolla is worse than a BEV because it puts way more GHG in the atmosphere, making net zero harder. Your opinion that the Corolla emits less GHG than a BEV is not borne out by the data. Most of the pollution of your car is from using it, not building it. EVs flip that and only are only slightly worse to produce. And we have to replace pretty much every road vehicle with a zero emission one, and sooner is better.
Buying the new EV, selling your old car, and helping push ICE vehicles off the roads is better than not replacing it in any reasonable environmental accounting.
Also, 15% is... a very significant percentage. You have to do lots of efficiency improvements across every part of the world to make net zero happen. Not to mention that slice of the pie would grow to 30-40% if electricity goes zero-carbon.
And we simply have the technology to zero it out. But, like you, most people want to invent a reason the green technology is actually bad.
"electrified" is full-electric plus plug-in hybrid.
Does this mean that a non-plug-in hybrid would be in the "pure combustion-engined" bucket, or that they don't make those?
I believe the only non-plug in hybrid they make is the 911 with the T-Hybrid system in it. It uses motors to assist performance, but is not a plug-in.
It’s probably just an incredibly small number of sales?
I came here to say this. Also includes hybrids.
Electric cars are required by law to emit sound via a speaker for safety. Usually the sound is unique and somewhat electronic in nature.
Some electric sports cars, and I'm not sure but Porsche may be one of them, have a loud deep bassy faux-sports engine sound emitting from the speaker. "VROOOOM VROOOOOM VROOOM!" - on an electric car.
Does anyone else find this *extremely* weird?
It's like a petrol car having a speaker playing the coconuts (as it's replaced the horse).
> Electric cars are required by law to emit sound via a speaker for safety. Usually the sound is unique and somewhat electronic in nature.
And this is absolutely… bad. I mean requiring is good, but almost all of the execution of it is awfully bad.
It can be personal - but Hz of that sounds just makes me boil inside. That's how badly I'm receiving it. Almost no other sounds I hear on daily basis makes me uncomfortable.
And another issue - when somebody is parking the sound goes on, off, on, off, and that all the time until person is happy how car is parked. Couldn't it just make that sound all the time? Would be easier to get used to it. Same way it works with PC fans - there is no benefit to keep it as lowest as possible at all times, the trick is to keep it spinning fast enough to avoid as many changes of speed as possible - keeping the noise constant and easier to live with.
More weird is, that the electric harley davidson is by intention more loud than the gas powered ones.
But the law requires a artificial sound only for low speeds. Electric cars are indeed silent and it can be dangerous not expecting one approaching, when one is used to loud explosion engines. But I would prefer to just have no noise and people adopting.
My last ICE car (a VW GTI) did this. I could turn the engine noise up or down in the settings on the touch screen.
I think I’d prefer it sound like an ICE car vs the weird electric noises. I don’t notice when most cars drive by my house, unless they are obnoxiously loud. But someone on my street got an electric SUV about 6 months ago and I can hear it every single time; it drives me crazy.
I was hoping electric cars would cut down on noise pollution, but no such luck. I understand the sounds is there for blind people, but the sound some of these companies have picked cuts right through the walls of my house like few other things do. I’m wondering what it will sound like when we have a whole city full of them.
Totally agreed. It is beyond understanding why you would even pay extra to get these sounds. The heavenly silence is one of the great advantages of an EV in my opinion.
Yes.
Is there a difference in EU vs US regulation?
Yes, it's embarrassing
It is very obnoxious, the sound should just be enough for pedestrians to notice there's a car behind them (happened to me a few times now that there was an electric van one meter behind me that I hadn't heard at all). Tangentially related, but I came across a startup selling EV noises as NFTs once, and it still holds the palm of "most ridiculous business" in my head.
Global sales of Porsche, Audi, Mercedes and BMW brand ( BMW Group sales increased marginally, but includes) have all declined.
The end is in sight for German cars as Chinese made electric cars take over.
I have had several German cars.
Never again !
Sticking to Japanese and probably Chinese cars in the future.
German cars were decent once.
Now they are notorious for poor long term reliability.
If we're comparing notes, I traded in my Model 3 for a BMW i4 and I couldn't be happier. It's a nicer car and more fun to drive!
JD Power and Consumer Reports both rate BMW above average.
BTW, my impression of BMW maintenance from prior decades is expensive and not great reliability. I care about it less now with EVs because there is so much less regular maintenance. No oil changes, no brake pad changes, etc.
Yep. EVs are a once in a lifetime chance for EU and Chinese manufacturers to catch up again or even leapfrog Toyota. Until recently Toyota was 20 years ahead wrt reliability and upkeep.
Soon, battery weight and performance will be the main differentiator of vehicles.
That is no more true than it was for ICE vehicles.
Steering, braking, balance, suspension, Infotainment, UI and controls, and internal materials will all still vary widely for brands and manufacturers.
Not sure they care all that much about reliability. Just being cheap enough is enough
> Soon, battery weight and performance will be the main differentiator of vehicles.
People don't buy Corolla for performance. And even low-end EVs are "enough" thanks to the power coming on from the very lowest RPM. Aside from range all the characteristics are not performance based. It must be big enough, have expected comforts and look nice.
Sorry, I should clarify, I mean battery weight and battery performance. The other components won't be a major differentiator. They can be cheap and still be reliable enough.
The specs that we compare when EV shopping are mostly just how well the battery works (range, charge time, peak output, lifespan, power to weight, cold weather performance).
Counterpoint. After driving my Model 3 in 2022, a colleague bought his first non-BMW: a Tesla Model 3. His only complaints were the seat and the handling. Everything else he liked better about the Tesla.
This from someone who owned three or four BMWs.
You can get a BMW for $40k or $120k. Big spectrum. As another datapoint, I have one of those higher tier BMWs and even the top trim Lucid's interior feels like a downgrade compared to my car. The $50-80k BMWs also feel cheap and crappy to drive when I've tested them. Tesla can't compete on anything except their ADAS which is superior.
If you're transitioning from a barebones 330i then yeah the Tesla is probably better. But it's not even close when you compare to the top end German vehicles.
I would hope a car that costs ~$30k more is nicer and more fun to drive.
I don't mind paying more for a European product, and as for the 'poor long term reliability': we don't know what the long term reliability of Chinese vehicles is yet.
Not that it really matters, my car is 27 years old this year and I won't be getting another one but that has to do with wanting a car that is doing what I want it to do rather than what it wants to do.
I don't know if this is paranoia, but one fear I have for high-tech Chinese products is that if a world war were to start with China, that they'd have the ability to remotely disable these kinds of products.
After the Israeli attack using pagers I think this is no longer paranoid at all.
The same goes for Chinese built cloud connected hardware, especially if it is grid connected, contains heater elements or batteries. Inverters, solar panels, vehicles, 3D printers, the list is endless and all of these are either potential fire starters or ways to destabilize the grid. Used maliciously the potential for misery is pretty large. All this crap that wants to connect to the cloud from a country where your average citizen has very limited access to the internet should give you pause: if the Chinese government thinks these connections are A-ok then they must see some advantage, especially if all the services are supposedly free of charge.
> The same goes for Chinese built cloud connected hardware, [...]
It goes even more for American built or American influenced hardware.
Probably, yes, but this subthread is about war with China.
Yeah, but until this whole Greenland debacle few people would imagine a war with the US.
China is much less likely to attack civilians. Don't project america and israel's way of war onto others. I would imagine part of their strategy is to win hearts ad minds. America just kills and kills and kills and wonders why we arent loved.
Hmmm, what’s your sample size? Which wars has China been involved with and how have they treated civilians?
If Taiwan is invaded how do you think things will go if some number of Taiwanese people are defending the island mixed in with the local populace? Will the PLA call in an airstrike on an apartment with a sniper, or do you think they’ll go the hearts and minds route?
Part of the problem with your statement here, in my view, is you’re suggesting that the United States or Israel’s “way of war” is. It the default, or that in comparison to how other countries treat civilians may actually be more humane. I don’t think there’s a large sample size, or any particularly strong evidence to suggest how China will treat civilians.
And if you take into account how China has treated its own people, it’s not much better or worse than the United States. Maybe worst, actually, since Americans do have a legal right to protest.
> And if you take into account how China has treated its own people, it’s not much better or worse than the United States. Maybe worst, actually, since Americans do have a legal right to protest.
In "The Great Leap Forward" they killed tens of millions of their own. Granted, that was a long time ago, but while the current leaders may be wiser little suggests they aren't as ruthless.
in case of war, you cannot know that; if they can blow up millions of phones or routers (setting houses on fire) or ignite cars? i agree with you that currently there would be no reason to even project such an image: better to win with trade and trinkets and dialog. I would say thats always the case but he ho.
> China is much less likely to attack civilians.
They were pretty happy to attack their own civilians, I see no reason to think why that would be different abroad.
> Don't project america and israel's way of war onto others.
I'm not projecting, merely being cautious. Besides, I have no illusion about either America or Israel doing something similar, especially not with their current upper cadre but this subthread is about China).
> I would imagine part of their strategy is to win hearts ad minds.
I would imagine it isn't. See also: partnering with Putin in the war with Ukraine.
> America just kills and kills and kills and wonders why we arent loved.
Yes, but they're not alone in that.
> They were pretty happy to attack their own civilians, [...]
Yes.
> [...] I see no reason to think why that would be different abroad.
Well, you can look at the history of the PRC so far.
> I would imagine it isn't. See also: partnering with Putin in the war with Ukraine.
It's not all that much of a partnership. They are mostly squeezing Russia dry with cheap oil, and press territorial concessions out of the Tsar in the East, when he's busy in the West.
They are currently killing some of their own population in internal genocides. I don’t think they will treat others better.
No they aren't. Please provide evidence that doesn't link back to discredited hearsay by a US think tank.
I do not think it is paranoia. But we can have this from anywhere. American devices, EU devices; if I cannot analyse the firmware, ICs etc, what is going to guarantee these are not remotely exploitable. Even if Porsche never built such a thing on purpose, the car is connected so someone can break in, hack it and do stuff including possible overhead the battery so it ignites.
It does not have to be on purpose quality wise either: I had 2 spicy pillows in my life (and I have a lot of gadgets, including fully Chinese ones); a Samsung flagship phone and a macbook air. Both just unannounced got very hot and broke open: no fire but still... So I would say it is possible for a state actor to remotely hack, take over and ignite your Samsung and Macbook as apparently it can already almost happen without hackers.
What to do about it? Without just fully open sourcing hardware and software, I do not know. I mean that would not help a lot if no one reads it and finds the issues/vulnerabilities, but at least we stand a chance, vs now. Unplugging from internet is not really a thing, although, when it comes to cars and airplanes i would rather see it mandatory non connected.
People don't realize that every device with a LiPo is only one (possibly malicious) update away from becoming a fuse.
Meh, often the LiPo protection logic is hardware based to prevent just this sort of mistake/sabotage. Some protection chips are software-configurable or reprogrammable, but the parameters are again limited (by design). Perhaps you could cause long-term damage by programming it to manage the battery poorly, like repeatedly charging/discharging it deeply.
I think "every device" is just fearmongering. No software Apple/Huawei push could immediately make a phone or laptop combust. Electric cars, 3D printers, etc... I'm not so sure.
You cannot (I don't know) use the cpu, gpu etc to overheat it quick enough, during charging, to get it over the threshold?
But even if that is not possible, de-activation would he possible; finding a 0 day as nation state and using it to disable all iPhones currently connected in the US?
it's not paranoia
chips with backdoors which would allow exactly something like that (or many other things) have been found more then once in recent years AFIK
through a fancy personal car stopping working is the least relevant target. Network backbone, smart phones, and other core infrastructure is a much more relevant target. And even for cars all the non-personal vehicles (e.g. ambulance, trucks, police ...) are much more relevant targets.
Certainly anything that downloads over the air updates. I'm not mad that our government turned down import of EVs from a country that became an adversary
Disabling them is one thing. Having them auto-drive to select locations and self-immolate is another entirely.
The reverse is clear for Chinese people. Do you remember when, in the early 2000s, the US sold a Boeing 767 intended for Chinese presidential use, and Chinese authorities later reported finding numerous hidden listening devices on board? There is a Chinese Wikipedia article about the incident [1], but no dedicated English one. More information in English can be found here [2].
Sadly, the US is more likely to at war with Europe than China
Japanese and Chinese are very different buckets. What is the long term reliability of Chinese cars? Nobody knows.
I wouldn't be too concerned.
Hyundai used to be synonymous with "garbage".
People who have purchased Hyundai/Kia products w/ the GDI Theta II engine would, perhaps, take issue with "used to be".
One engine issue due to a manufacturing flaw shouldn't be enough to counter their massive change in produt lines over the years
I have a decent amount of second hand experience with used cars, through my brother who is a mechanic and spent a number of years working at a used car dealership. Hyundai/Kia is the only company he ever had to do engine replacements for at said dealership, and he did dozens. All under 200k km (frequently right after the extended warranty on the engines ran out, and occasionally on the second or even third engine for the vehicle). These are cars with good service history and otherwise in excellent condition. Sometimes cars they got on trade, sometimes purchased from auctions, sometimes customer cars (after they were sold). No rhyme or reason, just a genuinely bad design that was “fixed” but never fixed.
The only other universally-bad major component is JATCO CVT transmissions. I think his record was an Infiniti QX60 that had 95k km and a blown transmission. Most small vehicle/sedan CVTs he did were in the 160-190k km range, with some lasting as long as 250k km. And of course they were not repairable, since even if parts were available, the entire thing grenades leaving basically nothing left to rebuild.
Point being, “one engine issue due to a manufacturing flaw” is drastically underselling the issue, at best. It is an incorrectly-engineered engine that fails prematurely when built within specification, except when the tolerance stackup lines up in your favour and you perform much more frequent maintenance than prescribed. Oh and the affected engines were manufactured over about 15 years (and there’s signs that their current GDI 4-cylinders are still affected).
The E-GMP Hyundai/Kia EV platform is also unreliable. Around 1 in every 50 of these cars will suddenly lose power while driving due to ICCU failure. Search any forum for the EV6 or Ioniq 5 and this is all over. Mine broke down and got towed back to the shop so many times, where it sat for ages because my dealer was sharing a single EV-qualified tech with 2 other dealers. I eventually had the car Lemon Law'd. As far as I know this issue is still unsolved after 4+ years. (The software recall made no difference.) I loved the car when it was working though.
Maybe just anecdotal evidence, but i'm noticing a lot of Kias with no brake lights. I'm suspecting bad body control modules are going to become more of a thing as these cars age.
I noticed when GMT800 trucks were blowing DRLs constantly and lo and behold there's a TSB for that. So I don't think I'm imagining things.
what it with cheap imports and no DRLs? 9/10 cars driving in the rain seem to be grey nissans that are invisible 30 feet away
For what it's worth, this puts Hyundai around "industry average", above Acura, Audi, BMW, Subaru, Mazda, Nissan.
Below Chevrolet, Honda, Porsche, Toyota.
Hyundai is fairly unreliable. They were up and coming back in the 2000s and to some extent the 2010s, but their reliability has been quite poor in the past 5-10 years and I really wouldn't recommend a Hyundai to anyone.
Anecdotal, but I'm extremely disappointed with my Hyundai Tucson purchase. It's the first car I've owned. The drive train is gone on it and the mechanic says it's a common issue. Only 140k on it, 2019. It's hard to believe I paid so much for it and got so little use.
140,000 miles is a lot of use in 7 years. "expected" design life of cars can be 10yrs/100,000 miles. Sorry to hear about your drivetrain issues. I don't know about the Tucson in particular, but many manufacturers are lying about the transmissions having "lifetime" fluid when the transmission manufacturers themselves recommend fluid changes around 60-80k. But if you don't change it, yes technically the car will make it to 100k, but then no shop will touch the transmission fluid for fear of wrecking it.
Suddenly most of the world doesn't care about human rights?
Don't ask german car companies what they were doing between 1939 and 1945
We all know that. Doesn't mean we need to be OK with that forever should any other company attempt that?
Also don't ask VW what they did in latin America, or east China.
yes, because when cars were bad and chinese brands were cheap, it was virtuous to pinpoint human rights vs 'chinese cars are yucky and i want to look cool'.
No one cared to begin with. Just look up the horrors involved with Apple phones. People want their fancy devices. Doesn't matter if slave labor is involved. Doesn't matter if we need to add nets to prevent laborers from killing themselves instead of putting up with the horrible conditions we force them into.
Porsche / Audi are selling a lot more cars then they were 10-15 years ago. I think they will be okay. Chinese brands will cut into all establish automaker sales, but the German cars have strong brands that symbolize luxury. Look at Land Rover. There are cars are completely unreliable and they are selling more than ever at increasingly ludicrous prices.
I agree with you, but luxury car manufactures largely sell leases. So they are designing their cars for that market.
I am very much interested in electric cars that look like normal cars. I understand the battery changes things. But why they have to shit up the design of 75% of electric cars is nonsensical to me
Designers can’t help themselves when given the freedom to take things in a new direction, they forget there might be practical reasons for the old designs. (See Liquid Glass.)
ICE cars are on the way to becoming obsolete.
Japan doesn't produce many strong competing EVs at the moment.
Why are you sticking with Japanese cars? why not American? But yes definitely Chinese EVs in the future when they come to America/Europe.
americans are junk in comparison
Teslas are junk? have you ever driven one recently?
The company that makes my pickup truck is headquartered in the Netherlands.
Are all German cars the same? Is there a reason they all declined together, in your opinion?
no OP, but as someone who comes from a family where German cars were king for several reasons, who have all become disillusioned and now buy Asian cars, where the reason is simple. American style corporate greed infested German auto-manufactures and it shows at every level.
It is most obvious with things like subscription services for basic function, like acceleration or the seat heaters you already paid for, but it has been present in a more insidious way for far longer, like intentionally breaking good design so that small cheap and easy to mass manufacture parts break at predictable schedules. These are then quoted to you at $900+ for a part that will cost you 60 through china, for what is a plastic mould, some magnets and a wire. The cheap replacements work just fine and last just as long.
So, over time, we've become so fed-up with it, and it is a problem present from bmw, vw, audi and beyond, that we just started going with Toyota/Hyundai or Chinese EV's etc, and no one has a gripe since. Repairs when required are cheap and easy, often easily done at home, cars drive almost if not just as well, mileage is comparable, joy of driving is comparable, overall there is simply no value left in German cars beyond the status symbol, something we care little for.
I always loved BMWs from the 80s and 90s, but settled on Volkswagens because I was just a poor teen or early 20 year old. Finally got the means to buy a top of the line X7, and have regretted the purchase for may of the reasons you listed.
The software is garbage, the car is too fancy (electric folding seats) but poorly implemented so it’s just frustrating. Total nanny car, can’t turn off backup beeping alerts. Rear row of seats randomly go to full hot on the climate system.
New battery is $700. Can only use a BMW battery installed by a BMW technician with computer access (they are coded and only a tech with the keys can pair the new battery to your car).
Should have just bought a damned minivan, but the wife likes it and doesn’t want to get rid of it.
The enthusiasts car company is no more.
I love my older (80's and 90's) Mercedes. Reliable and pretty simple to work on. But I would not buy a new one for similar reasons as you cite for your BMW.
But parts for the older ones are getting harder to come by. The Classic Center isn't what it once was. You used to be able to get almost any part for any car but many things are NLA for cars that are only 20-30 years old.
I haven't bought German ever, but everything I hear seems pretty negative.
Some of the recent models have plastic timing chain guides and have turned the engine around so that the timing chains are in the back. The only innocent explanation is that the car is only meant to last 10 years at most, so saving the money on plastic instead of metal and screwing whoever owns the car when the timing chains need to be redone (or ruining the engine when the chain fails) is out of scope for their quality team.
There were many older models of BMW that had an electric water pump. If that sounds silly, well, it is. And it failed frequently and was again, very difficult to replace.
I just don't have any respect for German automotive engineering. Reliability is job #1. And the company's themselves, well, "collusive" is a pretty good term. I saw an estimate that German auto industry collusion resulted in about $10k of additional cost per vehicle to U.S. buyers. The cases have somehow been kept quiet, but they've at least been caught holding back innovations until the other automakers have a competitive response, and gaslighting regulators into allowing higher emissions from diesels in the name of reducing the size and filling frequency of the AdBlue tank. I've also heard that there's another layer of this in the parts suppliers. Explains how a wiper motor or wiper body module is somehow hundreds of dollars.
> There were many older models of BMW that had an electric water pump. If that sounds silly, well, it is. And it failed frequently and was again, very difficult to replace.
On the face of it, it's not actually a bad idea. The electric pump can run at an optimal speed regardless of engine rpm. This means the pump can be downsized, because otherwise if it's driven directly from the engine it'd have to be sized for the worst case scenario of low rpm and high load.
Same reason why many vehicles nowadays have electric radiator fans rather than driven directly from the crankshaft like in the "good ol' days". (Of course with transverse mounted engines a crankshaft driven fan doesn't really work either, so that's another big reason to go for an electric fan.)
Now, of course this concept can be badly implemented, just like any other part of the design.
Putting the timing chain at the back of the engine away from the front is generally done to reduce torsional vibrations and tends to help with space claim, especially for pedestrian safety systems where you need a lot of travel space under the bonnet. But yeah, serviceability suffers.
Electric water pumps are a great idea though, instead of having an aux belt with tensioners and pulleys, you have on single part that can be unmounted and swapped out. Can run after the engine shuts off too to help cool it down.
> Electric water pumps are a great idea
They are a great idea if they are reliable, or cheap and easy to replace. The BMW unit was neither.
The timing chain thing also came with plastic parts. Mount the timing chain at the back if it's needed for other goals, but don't cheap out on a bit of metal. It really seems like planned obsolescence.
The majority of German Luxury cars are leased more often than bought outright. I think it was Audi where 80% of new car purchases were leases. They are not building the car for long term ownership. They are building the car for people that want to change cars every 3 years.
Hey. He has ancedtoal evidence he used to make a sweeping generalization about all cars based on country even though that grouping has little to no value in the cars themselves.
Does this also apply to electric cars? They use different platforms most of the time.
I’ll be honest, kind of tired of every automotive-related thread turning into blowing smoke up China’s ass. It’s become almost as predictable as what goes on in Windows-related threads.
Well, it's nice to know that people are enthusiastic about manufacturing happening someplace; I just wish more of it would happen in the US.
IMO it’s just to the point where it becomes off-topic. This article isn’t about the US vs China.
Aren't many of these non-pure-gas-powered vehicles still very gas-heavy, but just have an electric system for extra oomph?
I just buy japanese cars/vehicles these days. With that being said a lot of them are manufactured stateside - especially larger vehicles.
I had a Mitsu I was very happy with.
I've also purchased Hyundai made in Korea and it is wonderful but not much better that what was built in Iowa.
I grew up by the assembly plants in Ohio and worked there on various temp jobs in the late 80s/early 90s. There was (maybe still is) a lot of local pride in the product that comes out of those plants, the amount of energy that was put into quality control was boggling to my young mind. This included the motorcycle plant, where I had a few jobs correcting supplier parts that were just a smidge out of spec before bolting them on to the ATVs they were cranking out at the time.
Made me realize quality is a process that requires investment and commitment, and not some magic quality imbued upon the product by the locale in which it's made.
Buying an ICE vehicle in 2026 is like...buying a video cassette player when DVD players were already coming out?
Well, they make perfect sense to buy down here in here Australia. When I replace my current seven year old ICE car, it'll either be a diesel or a petrol electric hybrid. In either case it'll be a Japanese one.
No, there are many good, valid reasons to own an ICE vehicle.
Buying a BEV in 2026 is like buying a Beta VCR when VHS is just coming out?
We are in the transition phase from ICE to an Electric motor. It's too early to call who can nail it. Currently the Chinese cars are cheap and have long range. But in India Tatas and Mahindra makes cheap EVs that may not be as reliable but people are still buying them a lot. In US gas is still cheap compared to income, so hybrids like Camry are always going to be preferred over a low end EV like the model 3.
It all depends on service network and value for money. And now charging network and range. People who find a way to give you value for money will probably nail it.
In some european countries (atleast in finland), you pay less taxes for "electrified" cars than pure gas powered, so most people who buy porsche (atleast in finland) does not ever charge the car via charger, and never drive with "hybrid mode".
Hybrid porsches are called "tax evasion hybrids" atleast in finland
This is true to some extent in the UK as well. We have a curious company car tax regime where CO2 emissions are used to define the tax rates so hybrids are somewhat lower, although it's still onerous compared to just buying a car personally.
However, pure EVs are taxed at very low rates in comparison, so if you own a company or have the ability to do a "salary sacrifice" for a car with your employer, it becomes very tax advantageous to get an EV. Your company can also pay for your insurance, EV charge installation, public charging costs (even for private mileage) and so forth, so it's very common to see small business owners in EVs compared to private buyers. Porsches also tend to have particularly low monthly payments compared to their value since I guess they hold their value well and can be traded back in at the end of the financing period. I don't have one, though, as a Porsche is just crying out to be keyed or mocked where I live compared to a more modest car.
same in Poland - 9,3% tax for electrified cars, and 18,6% for gasoline ones.
German cars have lost their technological edge. They can't even build their own infotainment systems anymore. They're paying billions to China to do it for them.
I can't overstate how catastrophically stupid this is. Paying what they consider smaller competitors real cash to build core software, instead of developing that capability in-house or acquiring a few startups with decent engineering talent.
This isn't just a bad decision. It reveals a completely dysfunctional decision-making process and a total absence of technical ambition.
People who say but "Porche/Mercedes/etc.." has this design. Luxury segment is not coming from nowhere. This is the same reason british luxury cars are gone essentially. It will take some time, but EU built cars will be in a constant decline.
What's even more fun, they don't want to protect their own market the same way chinese did.
> instead of developing that capability in-house or acquiring a few startups with decent engineering talent.
VW has a JV with Rivian. I'd consider that to be similar to what you suggest.
Rivian will not be involved in infotainment for the most part
> instead of developing that capability in-house or acquiring a few startups with decent engineering talent.
It's usually the former and their infotainment stuff is usually nothing to get excited about. When they buy startups they get bogged down and burn off the talent quickly.
Maybe the solution is not having the same small set of car companies trying to pull off the survival balancing act as we did a century ago, maybe that's why China is progressing quicker.
Their biggest brand, BYD, is also relatively the "oldest."
It's the governemt priorities, local gov in China is building EV companies, AI companies. EU governemnt, US local gov is building shelters, or people who kick out people from a shelter on a voters mood swing.
A friend from the EU visited recently. He said, "At least the Netherlands is doing much better than 10 years ago...we have lights, roads."
That one sentence captures the entire mindset gap.
The bitter irony: Philips literally built ASML and TSMC, then sold both. Now those companies dominate global semiconductor supply chains while Philips sells... healthcare equipment at a loss.
And ASML is about to lose it's dominance too.
But yeah...lights on the streets. Built with Chinese LEDs. Powered by Chinese solar panels. Bought using budget deficits. In debt.
And the deficit keeps growing. Some EU countries faster, some slower. But the trend is unmistakable.
My homecountry the Netherlands is the worst. The push for becoming 'small America' had us sell of everything we could possibly be proud off to other countries, including the US (mostly Blackrock and Vanguard) and India and China. Privatize everything because it works so well in the US, sell it all (private and public) off to the highest bidder and hope for globalization and the market. NL is doing well economy wise still, but I wonder how much better we could've done if we kept it all to grow.
I studied math at the University of Eindhoven which, at the time, basically meant you would work at Philips or one of its companies. I did not and in hindsight I don't think I could've handled the downfall of that company up close.
That generation is the worst across Europe. They sold out entire industries, bought up all the land, let in millions of immigrants. Then they demanded to be kept alive during COVID, leading to massive overspending and health care premiums rising.
In return, they raised rents and health care premiums are still rising. And they are the last generation with massive egos (early boomer and before).
The US didn't privatize everything: it was largely private to begin with. The US had a near laissez-faire economy until the WW1-WW2 era. The 1850 to 1910 era is incredibly devoid of government regulations on the economy, which was of course undergoing a gigantic industrial expansion. European states were not formed in any manner similar to the US. The modern European nation was largely constructed in the post WW1 and post WW2 environment, they were heavily remade by the wars and what came after, including their social welfare structures and their various private/public ownership models. If you go back and look at the governing structures of most any of the European powers prior to WW2, they were nearly all: kingdoms or fascist. The US is floating on centuries of continually accumulating cruft, whereas most of the European nations have had hard break points where they reset the board and started fresh.
> The US didn't privatize everything
I did not mean that; i meant NL thought all privatised would be better looking at the US so they did (mostly). So they took the US as blueprint rather than repeat their steps.
To close the loop, the debt is treasury bonds held by other countries?
can you expand on ASML losing its dominance? i have not heard that
It hasn't happened yet. However China has demonstrated they can make the same thing now and just need some improvements. Time will tell but it isn't looking good for them long term.
Amen. This is some of the best descriptions of the current mid to upper class mentality in Europe. Frankly, I think only the common man feels what is really happening here.
I didn’t think Harmon Kardon was Chinese?
> They can't even build their own infotainment systems anymore. [...] I can't overstate how catastrophically stupid this is
Car manufacturers have for a very long time acted mostly as integrators and outsourced a vast amount of components, from braking systems to windows, lights, gearboxes alternators starters and other engine parts, electronic harnesses, suspension systems, seats, buttons and others. Lots of conglomerates nowadays even use common frames and engines ("platforms") across brands, developing engines is so expensive that they're sometimes shared across brands that aren't even part of the same groups. Infotainment and electronics are practically never built in-house, but instead purchased from Bosch, Samsung and the likes.
This makes sense, this isn't their specialty, the core market of vehicle buyers buy it for the car, not the infotainment system. Especially when talking about German cars, what they specialize into is the actual power train and quality of assembly. Not the radio.
My friend let me introduce you to the powerhouse of most european cars for 5 decades: Bosch.
it's not new. companies assemble tech, not build it.
1. A lot of hybrids
2. "Reasons for the decrease in both regions include supply gaps for the combustion-engined 718 and Macan models due to EU cybersecurity regulations."
What is the second about?
New regulations in the EU require increased security features in connected cars and secure updates that couldn’t be implemented in the older digital systems of the 718/Macan without redesigning all new systems, and since Porsche was planning on electrifying those models first, they moved that ahead rather than create new ICE models. In retrospect that was too early a move to BEV for them.
Porsche sold more electrified cars than gas cars in Europe in 2025. Pretty interesting to see the shift happening so quickly.
It’s not rocket science. Porsche discontinued the gas Macan in the EU, leaving the new all electric Macan as the primary option.
That’s the top seller. So… you end up with more electric than gas — because you don’t sell it.
Is this shocking? Obviously including PHEVs helps a bit, but even outside of this it is exactly what should be happening. Their biggest sellers are SUVs, and at these price points, the EVs can be substantially than their ICE counterparts. For 2026, they probably won't even need the PHEVs to get there, since the Cayenne EV is the best EV that they've built so far.
Given that they walked back many of their BEV goals in mid-to-late 2025, some may find this surprising. The K1 was supposed to be all electric vehicle when it was announced, and they are now going to release it as a gas & PHEV first instead.
They can try selling me an electric sports car the day they get the weight back under ~1500kg. Electric cars are fast in straight line, but that extra inertia is a killer in curves. I want a long range go-kart.
Their ICE sports cars barely make that in a lot of cases. I think you will need a long wait and a different manufacturer to get a very light weight BEV sports car.
Early 986 Boxsters weighted ~1300kg. Newer 718 models are a tad heavier, reaching 1400kg. The ICE Macan was 1900kg and newer electric ones are 2300kg and that's for their medium sized SUV! This craziness has to stop.
putting the rating together that way is some type of "automotive market Garry Mandering", Id say?
Just to be sure: electrified means hybrid and EV-s.
I think a lot of people are missing a point here. Cars are not (just) use-values. They are expression of desire. They are, for some brands, classic Veblen Goods.
Porche possibly could sell more by putting the price up
They put their marque behind EV and Hybrid. It worked. Their brand sold well. This is in contradistinction to vendors who won't think about this market niche in positives, but are being dragged into it.
This is true for quite a number of brands of vehicles. Also I don't understand what a modern Porsche is. Porsche to me was always a Rear Engined, (normally) RWD sports car i.e. the 911. I am personally on the look for a 944 (believe it or not they are cheaper than JDM cars of a similar vintage).
When I see a Porsche SUV, to me that isn't a Porsche. It looks like any other SUV on the road with Porsche badge on it. It akin to someone putting a Apple Sticker over Dell Logo on their laptop.
The same happens when you see a Bentley or Rolls Royce SUV.
> They put their marque behind EV and Hybrid. It worked. Their brand sold well.
They are losing money. Sales are down and they are planning to move back to ICE and are postponing or cancelling EV projects.
They have starkly raised their prices. The base 911 is nearly 40% more expensive than it was in 2020.
Yeah, such a weird comment. A 911 Turbo S is over $300k now. This car used to be low 200s for a well optioned one.
They're taking some kind of Nvidia strategy where they just charge more money for the new generation rather than making the new generation just objectively better than the previous for the same cost. The new GTS basically is a replacement for the old 911 Turbo - and at the same cost...
I was considering putting in an order for the new generation until the prices were announced. $300k is purely in exotic territory and if I am going down the exotic path, I'll gladly get something far more ridiculous. (Which is now the plan - just waiting for a carb legal one to appear on the market)
> where they just charge more money for the new generation rather than making the new generation just objectively better than the previous for the same cost.
Well, the new T-hybrid thing is really cool. But I'm not someone who spends $100k+ on a car.
T-hybrid is cool, yes. Ironically the first electric turbocharger hitting the streets just when Formula I is banning them..
Did it work? I'm not sure the financial or car community would agree. They already walked back their BEV strategy:
"Due to market conditions, the new SUV series above the Cayenne, which was previously planned to be fully electric, will initially be offered exclusively as combustion engine and plug-in hybrid at market launch. In addition, current models such as the Panamera and the Cayenne will be available with combustion engines and plug-in hybrids well into the 2030s."
This is pretty much exactly what they’re doing. They even admit in TFA that their dedication to the customer experience is part of the reason for declining sales - spending time on quality action rather than immediately profitable ones.
Can't wait until Chinese EVs come to America
They'll be in Canada soon, and some will make it across the border.
you know the sad thing? Porsche didn't even try.
They could have copied Teslas playbook and create a cool, fun, overpowered electric 911 or Targa or pull an old, fun concept and make it electric.
Instead, they have a boring SVU and the panamera, one of the probably ugliest car they have.
No one buys a Porsche because they want a sensible car for their family or they need something with large storage. They want midlife-crisis cars that go fast and look sleak.
They are now giving up on their entire electric strategy.
I don't get it. They could have ridden the wave of electric fun vehicles, instead they are giving in. Either because they can't do it or because they had no real interest to begin with.
> No one buys a Porsche because they want a sensible car for their family or they need something with large storage
I know two porsche-owners personally. One sometimes uses his porsche (non SUV, but the small fast one) to go on family vacations (with the kids cramped at the too small back seats, which seems funny to me). The other has an SUV and lives in the country with bad roads; They sometimes use their porsche to commute to work and for everyday-stuff like shopping.
> The other has an SUV and lives in the country with bad roads; They sometimes use their porsche to commute to work and for everyday-stuff like shopping.
That blows my mind.
I guess its the same mindset as people who buy a mercedes "jeep" (don't know the product id) or range rover and live the middle of the city.
Sorry I'm lost (getting late over here). Wouldn't a Porsche SUV fit perfectly out in the country on bad roads? The Cayenne is made for it?
I'm hoping Porsche's profit woes will lead them to making 911 supply less restrictive--especially in the US. New 911s in US trade above sticker price and have long (not Ferrari long), but long waiting lists.
probably worth mentioning they discontinued the ICE Macan (and 718 Cayman/Boxster) in Europe?
also they put a dinky 2KWh battery in some 911s
a lot of these luxury brands have been eating off china the past few years
but now they've lost their luster since china makes cars better than most luxury brands and china has a moat in EVs
so what's left is either the US or emerging markets
> china makes cars better than most luxury brands
More like China makes cheaper cars which is enough for most people.
Believe it or not, people aren't buying Audis in China because they're thrifty.
China was a huge market for Audi in the past as luxury status symbol. However, now Chinese buyers are so enamored with new tech-heavy Chinese luxury cars that Audi had to go make a whole sub-brand specific to the Chinese market just to stay in the game[1].
Watching my very, very MAGA 'friends' purchasing byd's is hilarious.
I've also, of late, noticed fewer and fewer Teslas around.
You have MAGA friends outside the United States?
There are way too many, unfortunately. For example, Venezuelans are 99% MAGA.
People with luxury beliefs can afford luxury items, news at 5.
I was reading about Porsche this week on reddit. lots of complaints about Taycans.
always have been a fan of Porsche.
hope they find the way forward
I used to really be into cars up to a few years ago.
These days, I think it is just far better to do without a car. I like being very local, and if I really need to go somewhere outside my city (SF) I'll just not lol.
I'll take a flight to visit my parents or my closest friends. Everyone else, we can just meet online.
I have no friends in SF, so I'm just sorta dissolved into the neighborhood. When I did have a car, I'd go on long drives but looking back that was just a waste of time. Maybe I'll drive again when I've "made it" but until then, gimme some Brooks lol.
And they all look the same and ugly as hell.
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They sold both of them?!
/s
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This does read/interpret a bit odd, because the Hummer H2 doesn’t strike me as a reliable vehicle and I’ve generally heard of them to be cost sinks (completely disregarding the horrible efficiency).
Why not start off looking at the cheapest EV or PHEV that you can find without high mileage that’ll fit your daily driving habits, then give it a test drive?
Consider how much monthly expenses will cost (might save ~90% on fuel) and then consider if you like the driving characteristics more.
Yeah it's not the... best. I bought it kind of on a lark, and the sunk cost made me reluctant to let go it.
Any brand recommendations? I'm really not one for 'smart' features, though I know they're kind of intrinsic to electric vehicles.
For cheap, the 2018 and later Nissan Leafs (old tech) or an Ariya (new tech, nothing notably exciting.
Maybe also check out Ioniq 5, EV6, Equinox, etc.
FWIW, my wife drives a Mach-E and I drive a Fisker Ocean.
The Mach-E is very comfortable but tends to be a bit higher in price than some other options. The Fisker Ocean is.. (from what you’ve said) probably not for you.
Also, a less efficient option with less “tech” would be a Silverado WT (work truck), those have a lot of range and sometimes you can find them for good used prices. Those are a hit or miss for deals because the MSRP is on the higher end.
Excellent bait, really top notch stuff — no notes.
While the headline is interesting.
I think the table at the end of the article is more so.
- Worldwide sales -10% YoY
- China sales -26% YoY
And when you cross compare Porsche saying they sold more EV powertrains than their gas equivalents against China's new found foothold as the market leader in consumer electric cars (BYD, NIO, Xiaomi, etc...)
Then I think you see an early indication not just of electric car dominance, but of the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
> Then I think you see an early indication not just of electric car dominance, but of the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
It’s done man. Americans are stuck in ICE engines because they’ve been told they’re “car enthusiasts” while the Chinese have been developing EV technology for years. Meanwhile, European makers are stuck not knowing what to do, make Americans happy or compete with the Chinese. The result: nothing has been done properly. And let’s be real, “car enthusiasts” are going to disappear in one or two generations. Practicality beats enthusiasm for 95% of car use.
Perhaps people in the future will visit the US for the dieselpunk nostalgia, the same way people like seeing classic cars in Cuba.
I strongly doubt any current car will stand longevity of those cars. The maintenance entry cost of anything with integrated electronic is just several order of magnitude in complexity.
Modern cars are far more reliable than old 'analogue' cars - primarily because of the integrated electronics. ECUs can detect when engines are running rich or lean, knocking or 100 other edge cases and adjust accordingly.
Switch to an EV and it's even simpler, you can get away with a motor, battery, BMS and inverter and you can get just about any soapbox to move.
Reliable is only slightly related to be maintenable.
ECU embedding makes the whole system more complexe. That is not necessary absolutely a bad thing, but the trade-off is different. And there is on top of that a different topic which is how electronics are used to enforce obsolescence and make harder to maintain the vehicle without special equipment of the specific firm. This can also be enforced with more analogical stuffs of course, but electronic devices are more likely to be used this way.
> Modern cars are far more reliable than old 'analogue' cars
They're reliable, but when they have a problem, they're too hard to fix.
Last time I got my Toyota Hybrid fixed, the recommended first step for the fault code was to "replace the ECU". Expensive. Fault was elsewhere but I had to suck up that cost. I've just scrapped that car for a different fault, because although the new fault was easily fixable, the parts and labour were very expensive (and wouldn't make the car more reliable).
Cars have become terribly unreliable in the last 5 years. Electronics that are too tightly integrated, silly displacement on demand setups, quality issues from COVID times, unrelialble small engines with turbochargers, and even Toyota/GM are having massive engine failure issues. And some manufacturers have record amounts of recalls.
I am not so sure that modern cars are more reliable.
My father has used a traditional (European) car (which had no electronics except the rectifier diode bridge for the alternator) for 35 years (1973-2008), during which the car has been used every day for commuting to his job (an almost 2-hour round trip in a city with very crowded traffic) and during vacations it was used mainly on difficult mountain roads. He stopped using the car when he was too old, not because the car became unusable.
The car has been repaired from time to time, but almost all the repairs were done by my father himself, alone and in a short time (he had the service manuals for that car, but he was not any kind of mechanic by profession, he was a physicist). In the very few cases when the car was taken to a repair shop, that was for replacing some rusted parts of the car body, and once for machining the cylinder block, after several hundred thousand miles.
And this was not some unusually good car, many others were like this, if their owners took good care of them.
I doubt that a Tesla would live that long, in similar conditions, though it would have the advantage that the owner would not have to be skilled in using his hands in order to avoid to waste time and money for minor repairs, like with that "analog" car.
> Modern cars are far more reliable than old 'analogue' cars ...
Define "modern". My 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera is now 38 years old (and I own it since 1999, it used to be my daily back in the day). It's considered one of the most reliable car ever built. Mine is sure still running strong and, well, we have to wait until year 2064 (I'll be long gone I guess) to see if any modern car proves as reliable.
Also: there are still Porsche 356 from the 1950s on the road. They do rust a lot (body had no treatment against rust back then) but many are still in working condition. Mechanic and bodyshops know how to keep these on the road. If after 38 years my 911 Carrera is still on the road, I'm sure the knowledge is out there to keep it on the road for another 38 years.
Do we know if all these Chinese cars sold today, say in the EU, shall still be usable in 38 years? What about the batteries? Shall there be compatible ones? Batteries that fail every x years and needs replacement is already quite a stretch from a "reliability" point of view compared to a 38 years cars whose engine has never been opened.
Thing is: my 911 is mostly analog except for the electronic fuel injection. A good old Bosch part.
Funnily enough that part is a typical part that fails. That and all the little sensors (but thankfully there aren't too many). But they're easy fix.
I think there's that sweet spot where cars were still simple enough and yet had already electronic fuel injection: that made for some extremely reliable cars.
Note that I don't use it as a daily car anymore: I now drive maybe only about 1000 miles / 1500 km a year with my old Porsche. But I totally could use it everyday: the reason I don't is not reliability, it's that an old Porsche from the 80s is a real gas guzzler (not as much as an american V8 from the 80s but still a gas guzzler). One of my favorite thing is the relatively short drive to go pick my kid at school then go groceries shopping. Every time I use I'm thinking "it's crazy to think it could be my daily".
And when my regular car has to go to the garage/maintenance, the good old trusty 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera gets to be a daily for a while.
38 years old.
My modern car has sensors for everything. It's very convenient to know what is the problem, but there are still problems. In seven years it's been something like seven times to the garage (in addition to maintenance / tires) for a variety of problems. Under warranty but still.
Regardless of who's right, you are aware that this is anecdata and survival biais right? Your experience with 2 single cars is not representative of how many years cars survive in average.
There is a point there: I can buy sheet metal and a welder at home depot and repair rust in a 1950s car (if I was really doing this I'd get better metals and a better welder, but the home depot stuff will work). If the CPU on my modern car breaks I can't fix it - worse, the computer industry has a long track record of stopping production on older chips and so there is a good chance the part I need won't be available at any price. (there are a few labs that can make a one-off chip - but they start at $60,000 each and that assumes you have all the designs ready)
Regardless of that, what most people are after is TCO.
Something tells me, and not only me, that longevity and ease of repair of these electrical gadgets are nowhere near old ICE car we all know very well. Is it direct experience with same type of cars across several decades? Nope, but experience with electronics in general, powered by similar batteries in general and its not looking good. More electronics = more failure surface.
> Define "modern". My 1988 ...
Lots of cars in 1988 still had 5 digit odometers because most of them weren't expected to ever need a 6th. Nowadays with some companies you can get almost that far and still be under warranty.
It's a pity that diesel-gate happened, and that they weren't able to solve the emissions problem.
I came across a post about a diesel tractor with no electrical parts and imagined the value of a post-apocalyptical car that could withstand EMPs and run on virtually any fuel type. Limited market obviously, make it configurable like a diesel Slate truck and baby you've got a stew going!
Not really. I’d agree 10 years ago, but post-COVID ICE r&d budgets have been slashed and we’re now in the enshittification phase. My brother in law is a mechanic. He’s doing like 5x more engine a transmission replacements than he did 10 years ago.
When your ICE vehicle breaks down on the highway, you can get it towed and repaired at any half-decent car mechanic. If you don't like his cost quote or his service/repairs, you can get your car taken elsewhere (usually the mechanic can get it running in a short while, unless it is a major breakage problem) for a second opinion or service/repairs.
When your EV breaks down, you won't even bother to get it towed, because the only ones who can repair it are the (very expensive) showroom of the car manufacturer you bought it from, or their authorized (and very expensive) service center (and those will be very few of them in a city, and forget about getting such EV Service centers in the suburbs or rural areas). And you have to accept whatever cost quote and dependencies (additional upgrades to "fix" the "issue") he specifies. Good luck trying to figure it out or getting a second opinion, unless you have an EV industry expert as a friend or family member.
The EVs are white elephants. They look good while they last. But once they start breaking down, you will be paying through your nose just to keep it ticking along.
Whereas that 30-years old ICE car of your grandpa? That rustbucket can be repaired (eventually to full functionality and best looks) in your home garage by you and family/friends if you have the knowhow (or want to learn it), and can afford the time and spare parts cost (which are affordable for middle class, except if it is a vintage car or sports/luxury car).
EVs will be the deathknell for the hobbyist market and small-scale auto shops.
And don't even get me started on how easily and dangerously EVs can be hacked/hijacked by hackers.
That has nothing to to with EVs per se, as many modern ICE cars are just as impossible to repair for non-affiliated repair shops. And some EVs, e.g. the Nissan Leaf, are quite easy to work on for independent shops.
Except for the electronic subsystem, almost everything else in an ICE car can be repaired by a competent non-dealer mechanic shop.
I do agree though that modern ICE vehicles are becoming more and more complex, with electronic subsystems replacing manual subsystems, so non-dealer mechanics may struggle with such complex work and may even reject the work saying it's out of their ambit. This situation is getting aggravated as car manufacturers are pushing for hybrids, which have the partial advantages & disadvantages of both ICE & EV worlds.
But for any EV (including the Nissan Leaf), repairs & advanced diagnostics on the electric-drive components (which is basically the main component of the EV), health checks on the battery (other main component), or repairs involving high-voltage systems, are typically out of the competency and ambit of a non-dealer mechanic, unless the mechanic shop is a dealer-certified EV-trained service center.
However, the routine mechanical work — things like brakes, suspension (e.g., sway bar links, shocks), tires, wheel alignment, cabin filters, etc. — can generally be done safely and correctly by a good independent mechanic, whether it be for an ICE vehicle or an EV.
> When your EV breaks down, you won't even bother to get it towed, because the only ones who can repair are the (very expensive) showroom of the car manufacturer you bought it from, or their authorized (and very expensive) service center
That's true, but it is has more to do with parasitic capitalism than EV technology, and could (and hopefully will）be solved with regulation. My understanding is that there is already significant regulation around ICE car parts which is the main reason why the situation there is better.
Regulation will do nothing because it is not meant to tackle such problems.
EV is basically a battery-powered motor on wheels.
The smartphone in your hands is a battery-powered communication device with a touchscreen.
If your smartphone doesn't work, can you take it to any phone repair shop and get it repaired for anything other than a battery replacement or screen replacement (or if the service center guy is technically competent, then maybe replacing the charging port if it is busted).
EU, India and few countries have enacted the Right to Repair law.
But if your smartphone is broken, your options to get it repaired are minimal, because its manufacturers have gone to extreme lengths to ensure that such devices are not easy to open (let alone repair).
Now extrapolate that Smartphone Repair problem 10x-100x, and you have the EV Repair problem.
EVs are DESIGNED and MANUFACTURED to be extremely difficult to repair even by excellent technicians and software experts.
EVs are the Razor Blade Theory in moving attractive action. (Razor Blade Theory is basically a selling cheat but perfectly legal one; they sell you a razor blade with special handle/holder cheaply, but you have to keep buying razor blades from same brand (e.g., Gilette) & model that only work with that specific type of handle/holder. Over a period of time, the manufacturer will keep increasing the cost of the razor blades, because they know they have locked in the customers who have become accustomed to that type of handle/holder, blade quality & comfort, design, etc.)
You can buy an EV for an expensive upfront cost (it is sold as a premium (> ICE car) segment; just like smartphone brands have a premium price-tier segment), but running and repair costs is where the customers will be fleeced.. hard.
And please note that running cost (wear & tear) of an EV will not be covered by car insurance, so if your EV breaks down on the road, and you get it towed for repair, then the showroom/service-center (who usually have a tie-up and nexus with car insurance vendors) and insurance vendor will simply say the repairs won't be covered under extended warranty or insurance as it is normal "wear and tear".
And you'll have to swallow all those lies at face value, because you cannot even go elsewhere for a second opinion (because an EV of one brand, cannot be repaired at service center or showroom of another; if you go to another service center of same brand, they will cite you the same lies because that's their revenue model (Razor Blade Theory)).
EVs are a losing proposition for humanity, because unfortunately, even the supposedly green (not affecting climate change) EVs have toxic waste (typically the chemical batteries and plastics) that are never safely disposed off in climate-friendly ways.
ICE vehicles have some of these same problems, but their biggest advantages are their long mileage (per full tank of fuel), easier operation (not driving, I mean it is easy to top/fill up the fuel), easy maintenance (affordable repair options), and all-round viability that can even last a century with the right care.
However, you can bet that EVs are being designed for planned obsolescence, and that's a shame since humanity indeed needs some viable alternative to fossil-fuel-guzzling climate-polluting ICE vehicles.
Regulation has everything to do with this.
> EVs are DESIGNED and MANUFACTURED to be extremely difficult to repair even by excellent technicians and software experts.
Correct. So we should pass regulation that makes this illegal (or otherwise prohibitively expensive for manufacturers due to legal responsilities which would be difficult to fulfil with such a design). We know that repairable EVs are entirely possible.
The same applies to smartphones and whole bunch of other hardware from washing machine to tractors, and is the basis of the "right to repair" movement.
If 40+ years of mobile phones have not solved such problems through regulations, I am afraid they won't be solved for EVs either.
Furthermore, once EVs become mainstream across the world, it will be China controlling the world [since batteries and chips & ICs (integrated circuits) need Lithium, Rare Earth Metals, etc., but China has the monopoly on them (especially on Rare Earths processing)].
That's why China is doing its best to dominate EV market (as hinted in the above linked article), because it knows no nation can dethrone it for the basic essentials of any EV.
It would be a bad idea for the world to be beholden to a single country for anything. Oh wait, the world is already beholden to China for most of the manufacturing. LOL.
We are doomed.
> If 40+ years of mobile phones have not solved such problems through regulations, I am afraid they won't be solved for EVs either.
I don't think that follows. Nobody has even attempted to solve these problems for mobile phones. And the main reason for that is that it's a pretty new problem. Appliances 40 or 50 years ago were much simpler and typically quite repairable. It's only the recently that a focus on manufacturing efficiency and profitability have led to these kind of problems.
This definitely isn't true. This was measured by Consumer Reports and Toyota hybrids were the most reliable power trains.
This is likely due to experience, regardless, it's the reality.
What? How so? Isn't it just a bunch of PCBs and sensors whereas gas powered cars are a bunch of awesome nonesense you can gently whack against each other to create different notes and tones?
The former requires a special printer while the latter requires tons of machines for precision engineering and the industrial equivalent of smitheries and blacksmiths!
Ever tried working on a new car versus fixing a pre 1980’s car?
Damned if I have any idea what anything is or what to do on a new one. I had a moderate chance of diagnosing and fixing my old Triunph.
If you have the right tools then it's easier than ever.
To put a different spin, a friend's father was a very successful auto mechanic. What he loved about it was the mental challenge of diagnostics. The stranger the problem, the better for him.
A few years back he sold his shop. There were two reasons:
1) He made f** you money, and retired decades earlier than he'd expected. 2) For many years he'd felt like the daily intellectual challenge was gone.
His repeated refrain was that modern self-diagnostic systems were good enough that it took away most of the day-to-day intellectual challenge.
Identifying which assemblies to replace is easier than ever.
But there are an ever increasing number of assemblies with a "non starter to anyone other than the OEM" up front manufacturing set up cost. And when the OEM drops support......
Until the computer dies and you can't get the replacement part.
Well there’s the drm
Ain't gonna be any diesel in the future. Peak oil has passed, now it's only going downhill.
Feels bad faith to shit on people from your ivory tower, just because they can't afford to ditch their reliable beaters and buy a new car. Have you seen wage growth vs car price increases lately? Not everyone is on a remote six figure US tech job. Try to view and judge things from outside your bubble as well.
I'd also dump my ol reliable ICE car that's now probably worth less than a fancy electric bicycle, if someone just gave me an EV for free ;)
But since I'm poor and can't afford EV prices with decent range, nor can I afford a home with a parking place with charger, then ICE it is. European here btw, not american.
Same here. Living in the Netherlands, I drive a 2008 Daihatsu Cuore, bought for 850E over a year ago, I pay 17E /month in mrb (road tax) and 38E/month insurance. It's basically close to the costs of a scooter. And I average under 4L/100km fuel usage, for my 200km/week commute. I did some calculation and no car comes close to these running costs. Definitely no electric cars, even if I were to get them for free, because road tax here is mainly a factor of weight.
Even a Dacia Spring with its 900kg is slightly more expensive overall to run (in my circumstances. I could charge at home, but don't have solar panels atm), and a lot more expensive up front to buy (used).
It has over 304k km already, and it runs perfectly well with some occasional maintenance and some mechanical sympathy, but I was considering alternatives in case something were to happen. Conclusion? Just buy another one. Suzuki Celerio is the only one in the same ballpark, but it's about 2k EUR more expensive. And I love my Daihatsu.
It wouldn’t change your equation much, but you don’t need a car charger as such, just connect to a normal power socket (which may not be available within reach).
We ran a Leaf for years like that, and it would charge overnight just fine.
We do have a charger now and it’s quicker, but it’s a luxury we didn’t need.
>. Living in the Netherlands, I drive a 2008 Daihatsu Cuore, bought for 850E over a year ago, I pay 17E /month in mrb (road tax) and 38E/month insurance.
Imagine how many people are reading this and thinking to themselves "government has to do something to drive up those numbers so it's no longer financially sensible for you to drive that car"
Well, fuel here is close to if not the most expensive in EU. That also contains a lot of tax. But I just don't drive that much.
And the insurance is cheap because of years of no incidents, and the fact that I'm over 30. But indeed, I wouldn't disagree if the government made electric cars cheaper from a tax perspective. They just reduced the tax discount to 25%, and it will be gone completely in a few years.
If they raise taxes significantly for me, I'll just sell the car and find a closer job. 20km one way to Amsterdam with an ebike, that's 2 hours per day. I don't have that much time to give away at this point in life.
Like me, you're not buying new cars on that budget anyway. 6 years ago when my ICE car became unreliable I bought a used Chevy Bolt for less than $20k. They're closer to $10k now. Plenty of range.
People aren't being asked to dump their current reliable vehicles.
What we want is for people to think about EVs when it's time to replace them.
> People aren't being asked to dump their current reliable vehicles
Depends on where the people live. In France, that's just about what they're asked. If their car is "too old" (reliability doesn't matter, only age), they may no longer drive in Paris and some other major cities on weekdays from 6 AM to 8 PM or something like that.
https://www.france.fr/en/article/crit-air-anti-pollution-veh...
I have an ICE car and I agree with restrictions like that. You don't need to be Jeff Bezos to own a car that's at least Euro 5 and doesn't heavily pollute the air. If you own some 20+ year old beater that smokes like a chimney, get fined, we don't have to tolerate your health hazard mobile.
Look at the average car payment in the US, and the average car sale price
The ”americans can’t afford EVs” argument falls totally apart when the average(!) sale price is over $50k and you can get a perfectly good Leaf for $25k
You need to compare apples to apples in that 50k sale price. People are not buying Versas that are 50k
Good point but that can be explained by familiarity inertia. People who have 50k to blow on a new car are anything but young buyers, with the average age of a new car buyer in the US is around 53 years old.
And boomers and gen-X are used to owning ICEs, so there you go.
Millennials and Zoomers would be more open to EV adoption but they have a lot less disposable income to buy new cars.
Meanwhile, bicycles and e-bikes cost a fraction of a car.
Not sure if you are familiar with the built-environment in America, but there’s effectively no biking infrastructure and people are openly hostile towards cyclists who try.
Depends on where you live. There are a lot of cities in North America that have biking infrastructure. As a general rule, the worse the winters the better the biking infrastructure. (you need to get to Minneapolis or Canada to see it)
There's a lot of bike accidents in my city in Europe too. Yearly deaths too. Still only commute by bike if the trip is through the city center since it's the only way to bypass city traffic and without dying of old age from waiting on public transport.
Same here in New Zealand. Around town a bike is quicker and you learn to adapt to the danger. I about 1000k per month.
The main issues for me are small load capacity and whether or not there is a shower at the destination.
Barely any bike infrastructure where I live, either. You can make it work. Give it a try someday.
How do you suggest you get to work by bike when work is 50 km away?
Moving closer. It is a shitty commute by any means of transport.
It is no wonder that you are jumping at everybody offering suggestions.
I'd love to but would rather not be road splatter, which is a frequent outcome:
https://news.google.com/search?q=cyclist+run+over&hl=en-US&g...
If you ever get the chance to try a bike radar like the garmin Varia, knowing what’s behind you is a game changer.
I feel naked on the rare occasion I don’t have it.
We've been overtaken by minibikes and ATVs on the roads, it's weird.
>e-bikes cost a fraction of a car.
Don't worry, there are people scheming up ways to change that. And it's (mostly) not even the auto lobby.
Yes, and? They're different tools for different purposes. Such a disingenuous comment.
> They're different tools for different purposes.
Getting to work and running local errands?
Yes one is for getting to work and running local errands, the other is for showing that you are a successful alpha hustler who can afford a big truck.
What a childish troll comment.
Not everyone's work commute can be done by bicycle. I can't cycle 40+ km each way on the highway.
And not everyone who buys a car to get to work buys a pickup truck. Sensible cars exist. Ignoramus.
ANother disingenuous comment.
One for commuting long distances versus one for commuting short distance. ignoramus
Disingenuous? Plenty of people live without a car.
By choice?
Life is short enough, I don’t need to waste it providing power to travel to work and back when I can save 1.5 hours per work day driving. (And more if I go to lunch.)
> I can save 1.5 hours per work day driving. (And more if I go to lunch.)
That’s going to depend where you live. Commuting by bike is half to one third the time it takes to drive for my commute. One work location is 8km away, the other is 15km.
Yes, plenty of people choose active transportation. Once they give it a try they see that not only it is about as fast as driving, but it feels great, too.
I don't know your particular circumstances, but unless you have tried riding a bike to work you probably don't have a good sense of how long it would take you.
Many people realize that they'd rather spend an hour biking every day instead of half an hour driving each day, because they enjoy riding a bike. "Providing power to travel" is such a weird way to describe using your own body and enjoying the outdoors
>Disingenuous?
Yes, it's disingenuous to insinuate through that comparison as if bicycles are replacements for cars, or that all car trips can be replaced by bike trips. Both are good for different kinds of trips. Hence why cars still have a place, even in bike dominated Netherlands, and why your comment was in bad faith and why Ic alled you out for it.
>Plenty of people live without a car.
Plenty of people also live without a home, that doesn't mean it's a good situation to be in.
[flagged]
I don't think being used to buying ICE cars is an excuse. Or probably even true.
More likely they stay popular because America has extremely cheap petrol/gas and poor electric car charging infrastructure.
I don't know what you mean by reliable beaters. By the time EVs are mandatory, my ICE car will have turned into dust and I'd have to buy a new car anyway. It would be pretty foolish to stall EVs only to then be forced to buy another ICE car.
Sorry but where did I do that? I oppose tariffs on Chinese cars, which means I support making cars cheaper…
Yes, not to mention the fact that Chinese EVs can't be sold here... protectionism for weak American companies that can't compete globally. We've gone from an automotive superpower and the land of Henry Ford to the government propping up automakers and depriving Americans of free choice. If Chinese cars would actually be allowed to sold here they would sell like Toyota Camrys.
Until very recently, tariffs on American cars sold in China were much higher than vice-versa. The new US tariffs were an attempt to even the playing field.
I think most people would agree that no tariffs would be good, but China is more protectionist than any other major economy, including recent changes in US policy.
Yes, but China has always been straightforward in that they believe in protectionism. It's part of their system.
In contrast, in the West (at least until a few years ago), we have been fed the discourse that free market without protectionism is the best model, and protectionist countries are sabotaging themselves. And I don't know how it was in the US, but in the EU this caused hardship to many people. Entire countries pretty much sacrificed whole industries to the free market gods, because it was more efficient to bring the merchandise from elsewhere. Opponents who were defending their livelihood were framed as reactionaries that were opposing +X% GDP gains or didn't want "free competition" (often against products with unbeatable prices due to being made in countries with totally different rules and labor standards).
Now it seems that the system that supposedly was so bad gives an unfair advantage, so if others apply it the only defense is to apply it as well... but the free market apologists won't shut up anyway, in spite of the obvious cognitive dissonance.
Don’t forget the new use for tariffs. To force your allies to allow you to annex their territory.
There has long been a strong undercurrent of people who are for protectionism. Remember Ross Perot (many reading this were not even born in 1992 when he got popular as a third party presidential candidate) and his Giant sucking sound?
there are many people in America who don't believe in protectionism, but we lost this time.
True enough but really this boils down to we are just doing what they are doing. The reason they had it higher for longer was because for longer the situation was reversed, our cars were better. Now they have surpassed us and don't really need protection. We didn't before either, so it was a moot point. Now we do, so we do the same thing.
The point however is that the United States is supposed to operate under a different model than China. The reason to bring up the ways we act the same is then to find clarity in the contradiction.
This is essentially the same tension that runs through much of modern American discourse. It's never welfare if the beneficiary is a rich CEO at a corporation, only if it's a family in poverty. It's not like Chinese cars can't employ American workers just as Japanese and other foreign automakers do.
To my mind then, I think it's less about reciprocity and more about corporate welfare. Putting aside ICE automakers, there is also a very obvious individual who turned conspicuously political as of late who owes a great deal of his fortune to the expectation that his electric car company will one day rule the world. It would be quite embarrassing for even him if demand for his vehicles suddenly got demolished on his own turf. I would think he and others would be willing to spend a small fortune to keep the political needle tipped in their favor on this issue, the average consumer be damned.
At some level there is nothing wrong with such naked self interest. I just prefer we be honest about it, as only then can we really analyze it.
> The point however is that the United States is supposed to operate under a different model than China.
Does it mean we shouldn't have borders and a military because China has them?
Same applies to tariffs.
> but China is more protectionist than any other major economy, including recent changes in US policy.
Not true. China let Tesla set up shop in the backyard of their domestic EV industry, WITHOUT the mandatory by law 51% Chinese ownership, precisely so Tesla would light a fire under the asses of domestic players, forcing them to compete better with what was at the time, the pinnacle EV brand.
China is no longer beating us with protectionism but with innovation and manufacturing. People better wake up.
> so Tesla would light a fire under the asses of domestic players, forcing them to compete better with what was at the time, the pinnacle EV brand.
More like having Tesla to bootstrap the upstream suppliers so local brands can leverage them.
Which was a good strategy. It's not that far from older "Detroit strategies" that led to Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, and GM all competing for "world leader" from "The Motor City" in a past century.
If anything the shame is not that the Chinese pulled this off successfully, but that Detroit is still barely trying to compete in streamlining their bloated supply chains in light of EV competition; none of the US automakers are sharing upstream suppliers on batteries and all are scrambling in different directions on even some of the basics.
Yep, it’s amazing how much knowledge and capability a country can develop when it has most of the worlds manufacturing.
They say history repeats itself, and this EV market shift is a repeat. A remarkable past parallel occurred with US industrial quality experts and statisticians being ignored by the US auto industry in the 1970s, then being taken seriously by the Japanese auto makers who then sling shotted themselves past US auto quality in the 80s to probably 2010ish?
In this round of history repeating, 2020s US car maker management was also actively anti-collaboration and anti-expert within it's own domain. You can see commentary by Sandy Munro on US companies ignoring design and production efficiency details - outsourcing too much of their own supply chain, and being resistant to integration improvements. And similar occurrences of Chinese auto companies hiring US auto production experts who were being ignored by the US auto industry, then going on to to improve fit, finish and quality, while building organizations unafraid of vertical integration.
All that tracks with my observations.
Why not both.
Protectionism that works to bolster inovation.
TSMC didn't become the world's supreme chipmaker by a laissez-faire aproach from Taiwan.
Same applies to Samsung. And oh-so-many Japanese tech ventures.
And all of them were a product of American geopolitics and tech collaboration.
Let's not pretend high tech was ever not a result of government-assisted efforts, subsidies, tarrifs, export controls, and geopolitical games.
>TSMC didn't become the world's supreme chipmaker by a laissez-faire aproach from Taiwan.
>Same applies to Samsung. And oh-so-many Japanese tech ventures.
You're missing a lot of context with these analogies. TSMC and Samsung started off in the 1950-1980s as cheap manufacturers of low margin electronic commodities the west was actively trying to get rid of in the name of protecting the environment(semi industry is poisonous) and increasing shareholder value via cheap(cough, slave, cough) labour, while giving western consumers who had options of better paid jobs access to cheaper imported stuff. It was a win-win-win situation, kind-of.
But fast forward to today, now that TSMC and Samsung have become masters of cutting edge high margin manufacturing, and the west finds itself exposed to lack of said cutting edge manufacturing at home, they're starting to twist their arms to get the know-how and infrastructure that they missed out on back on-shore. Had the west know the table would turn like this they probably would have acted differently.
Same with cars. German OEMs like Mercedes that were the pinnacle of auto tech especially when it came to tings like safety and self driving/crash avoidance, but got greedy and were more than happy to outsource electronics and ECU development and manufacturing to the lowest bidder in the name of shareholder value, but over time they lost vertical integration and access to inhouse critical high end technologies that made them valuable over the competition. Now China used that outsourced electronics industry to develop its own electronic auto tech and its vertical integration supply chain to beat the Germans.
The highest margin item in an ICE car was always the engine at which the Germans were the best at, and China could not catch up. Fast forward to today, in an EV, the highest margin items are the battery, self driving stack and supporting AI silicon, almost none of which come from Europe, meaning German OEMs are losing out on innovations and profits big time, becoming only system integrators of US and Chinese sourced parts on top of which they slap a badge hoping the consumers will value it more than Chinese badges because "heritage and tradition". They are super fucked.
What are you talking about? GM sold more cars in China until very recently when Chinese buyers started flocking to EVs.
> The new US tariffs were an attempt to even the playing field.
That's a guess at the White House's thinking. They've been using every form of coercion in international relations, including economic (tariffs), military, and diplomatic. That's a factual basis for divining their reasoning.
Their words are not a factual basis - they can say anything and clearly will. Everyone who does those things provides justifications - Putin was helping oppressed Russians in Ukraine and stopping fascism, for example. Taking them at face value is not a serious analysis.
Interesting that Canada agreed to break with the US on EV tariffs.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46648778
It's limited but I feel like Canada aligning themselves at all with China over the US is an interesting development.
It's a good point but imo not really surprising when the President of the United States essentially threatened to invade Canada and Greenland.
This is classic multipolar politics, trade the two behemoths against each other so they don't roll over one day and just squish you. By alienating Canada and Europe we've handed China a great gift.
It's only getting started. Do you think Europe is going to use American networking equipment when America has shown that it will use its military against Europe? American grid technology?
And what about all those huge pending orders for F35 in ... Denmark and Canada? Etc.
Denmark ordered more in October. Canada talks a lot, but so far has done nothing concrete about reducing their order. You would think they would urgently cancel and get Gripens and/or Rafales.
Wonder what's going on behind the scenes.
Having a pending order that can be cancelled is negotiation leverage?
There are no other options. The F35 is the only gen5 fighter you can buy (Russia has one, but they can't make it and in any case Russia is invading Europe now and so not an option) , and as such it is going to be better than anything else you can get. Plus the cost of the F35 is similar or less than your other options.
The real question is what do those countries do when they have other options.
everyone is expecting everyone to actually go Gripen with Rolls Royce or MECA engines?
Europe is stuck with American tech with no real alternatives in the horizon. Europe doing an independent stack is just wishful thinking.
The alternative is China.
Wasn’t there a report in the last 10 years about China accounting for a huge portion of property sales in Canada? I thought I remembered seeing it was as high as 30% in some areas.
30% of house sales in Canada are not purchased in China, no.
Found the article. Vancouver specifically.
I believe this led to some legislation in 2023 to prevent or reduce foreign home buyers?
https://vancouversun.com/business/local-business/chinese-inv...
This is the outcome when your corporations bow down to wall Street. Tax payers money is just used to prop up their private profits and without exposing them to the actual competition. Short term profit seeking. Who foots the bill, the US tax payer who have to pay for the corporate profits and drive overpriced underperforming vehicles.
Protecting automakers can be considered a vital business for national security. This is not good for consumers, but relying on China for everything also carries many risks.
If China could sell it's cars here, it would spur American automakers to innovate, no? Government protectionism causes complacency
It's a balance. If a country is investing severely in a specific industry you can either tax them out of your swamp, counter invest in your industry or, realistically, do a mix.
It'd be difficult to compete with companies receiving large gov assistance without gov assistance and I find taxing them slightly safer than making it rain on specific people/companies.
It definitely worked in the past with Japanese cars.
I can 100% confidently say the average US buyer is not an auto enthusiast. Cars are appliances to the vast majority of people here.
There are multiple other factors for the relatively low adoption of EVs compared to China.
Automobile buyers who buy American or European cars are more likely to be auto enthusiasts.
Then there's the utility / practical / recreational crowd who goes for SUVs and pickup trucks.
Those whose primary aim is utility are already in (non-EU) foreign markets or used. Those are invisible to new-car US/EU sales.
It's a classic Innovators Dilemma dynamic (Clayton Christensen), where chasing higher-end market niches torpedoes development of disruptive tech within the same firm.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma>
The mean, median and modal auto buyer in north america is buying a blob shaped "car" that's marketed as a "crossover" and officially categorized as an "SUV" for compliance reasons. Maybe it's an ICE, maybe it's a hybrid, some are even electric. 99.9% of buyers choose based on fit for their intended usage pattern. And because the automakers are competing for these hordes of buyers in this segment, these cars are very competitive in terms of bang for buck.
The types of buyers who chose their form factor or source of motive power for their vehicle based on image or virtue points are a rounding error.
I own 2 cars, both Porsche. Mine is a 15 year old Boxster S. The wife has a brand new Macan 4S EV. It is a brilliant car. 280mi/450km @ 80% charge and no issues with the cold. It was 27F/-3.5C this morning.
I will never buy a gas car again. I plan to keep my Boxster until I can buy an EV version.
In the US there isn't much choice. There are a few Japanese and Korean cars - but even those brands put effort into appealing to auto enthusiasts.
Remember, if you need a widget that you don't otherwise care about knowing someone who does care about them recommends something is a very important factor in your decision. The realistic difference between a car/suv of similar size between GM, Toyota, or VW (random choice of brands but covering the 3 geographical regions) is minimal: the non-enthusiast will be happy in any of them.
Auto enthusiasts no, but cars are definitely not appliances in the US.
Cars are a way people mark their social status - whether they will admit it or not. A big, luxurious SUV with a small mountain of space, the latest tech, etc is not an 'appliance'. It's a luxury people are choosing to buy.
The difference is in priorities. Americans wanted a very different kind of car than China is/was making.
> I can 100% confidently say the average US buyer is not an auto enthusiast. Cars are appliances to the vast majority of people here.
Only like 1-2% of new cars are manual transmission here. A lot of the enthusiast market complains that everything is an automatic these days, even high end sports cars.
I like manual transmissions but I think DCTs are an improvement for the average car. They seem to have a lot less "hunting" than the typical torque-converter automatic and good precision for the driving conditions. It is easy to put them into a manual-select mode. And, of course, they don't seem to stall.
The manual transmission crowd cannot be convinced. Even when you show them the performance advantages etc. They just want 'fun' and 'engaging', however they define that.
Manual transmissions have certain advantages, particularly in their home next to an ICE. They never 'hunt' for gears; if you want that, you have to hunt. They can be push started if the battery is dead.
Manuals are really good in bumper-to-bumper traffic: often the second gear has an incredible range from slow crawling to 40 km/h. You keep the clutch completely engaged and just work the gas pedal. (The odd time when things look like they are coming to a complete stop, you hit the clutch to keep the engine from stalling. But if the traffic moves again while you are still rolling, then you just re-engage in second gear.
You can do a similar thing in automatics with their 1 or 2 gears, but it doesn't work quite as nicely as that second gear in a typical manual.
Manual transmissions are tougher against heavy loads (than torque converter automatics). If you have to tow a heavily loaded trailer, manual is better. The clutch is fully engaged and so very little energy is lost in the transmissions. Automatic transmissions can heat up under load and can overheat.
A lot of this is not relevant when we are talking electric vehicles, of course.
But in an ICE car, there are good reasons to prefer a manual transmission, even if you're not a sporty driving enthusiast.
I've driven both. I don't know how to define what I feel, but the true clutch is more "fun and engaging". I still went with a EV because it is the right choice, but I want the ICE with manual and if money was limitless I'd have a collection (plus a personal mechanic to keep them all running)
For me, there is the sense that the transmission is doing a precise and correct job, which reflects my intent. That causes the feeling of fun that comes from anything that works well.
On YouTube there are videos of machines doing precise jobs well, which people call "satisfying to watch". Those are relevant to the discussion, I feel.
You can get a ioniq 5N which simulates appropriately ICE noises, gear switching when you want it, and drive silently when you want it
I have only ever owned cars with manual transmissions for my personal vehicles.
I would 100% get a vehicle without a manual for my next car if it’s an improvement over a manual. I’ve driven a handful of Priuses. I would definitely own one. I would definitely own an EV.
I have no desire to own an ICE-only vehicle with a CVT, automated manual, or conventional automatic. They add complexity and opaque failure modes. Last year I lost reverse in our plow truck (an automatic). Totally undiagnosable for me, nevermind fixable. Had a new used transmission put it, and it started bogging and lurching from a stop and up hills. Can’t work around it, can’t fix it. Sold the truck for $300 to someone who’s going to part it out (the engine wasn’t great either) and moved the plow onto a new used truck.
We’re not all stuck in the past. Some of us do understand the system well enough to be picky about believing something is an improvement.
Another example: CFL lightbulbs flat-out sucked. Avoided them as best as I could. Bought CREE LED bulbs at $20 apiece as soon as they came out at Home Depot.
Manual transmission people are like the audiophiles of cars. Other than some sports cars, nobody cares.
I like manual transmissions; they do what you tell them, and do it quickly. They are fun to drive.
They are also on their way out, together with the internal combustion engine. It's possible to work them into electric cars, but they don't make much sense there.
The deal breaker for me isn't the lack of a manual transmission, but all the screens and software updates, and barriers to repair.
Can we not have an electric econobox that focuses on utter simplicity?
They are in the sense that most of them are buying cars that represent their identity. For example nearly every pick up truck is an "auto enthusiast", because almost none of them are used for their primary purpose more than a few times mes a year.
Many Americans base their identity off that appliance though, buying big trucks to drive around the suburbs and commute in. It needs to go vroom, so no e trucks allowed. I'd say it's more like a form of narcissism than enthusiasm.
Explain to me why I should want an electric car?
Low maintenance costs, cheaper operational cost (depending on electric rates).
Some of them are quite peppy too. My Leaf isn't but it meets the criteria I just gave.
> Americans are stuck in ICE engines because they’ve been told they’re “car enthusiasts”
actually I think there are two strange things going on.
Tesla has completely dominated acceleration vs ice cars. The model S can dor 0-60 in (admittedly fudged) 1.99 seconds. The model 3 performance has 500 or 600 horsepower.
This has created lots of EV enthusiasts.
BUT - they have also been screwing things up.
By taking away displays like the dashboard in model 3, or controls like drive select, turn signals and putting everything on the touchscreen... there's a really terrible UI. Who can be an enthusiast without being part of the car control equation?
EVs are sold as a luxury product in the US. ICE cars are familiar, convenient (no need to figure out how to install a home charger), and otter cheaper (lower initial cost, service is cheaper, value maintains for much longer, etc). I bought electric, but I recognize it's a privilege to be able to do so.
If competitively priced EVs hit the market, consumers would buy them in much bigger numbers. Manufacturers want to use EVs as a way to redefine themselves and make more money and seemingly the industry is colluding to keep them premium with a shorter shelf life.
I'm a "car enthusiast" and even I understand that holding onto ICE is like holding onto horses because cowboys look cool. It is a distilled macho culture like those old Marlboro ads.
I have a lot of ICEs - they are collectors items I keep in the shed unless there is a parade. My EVs are the daily drivers, not as fun, but more practical.
The above isn't quite true - there are some "daily" ICEs yet because EVs aren't in all niches and I don't replace things instantly even if they were. The idea is the future that is coming closer and closer to reality.
You are wrong - it is like holding onto horses because cars require carrying a mechanic to get anywhere. BEVs aren’t ready for every use and every place and every one in the US by at least a decade, so keeping an ICE / buying one today is the pragmatic choice.
> EVs aren’t ready for every use and every place and every one in the US by at least a decade
Gee, I wonder why.
EU automaters fail at making modern cars. They just put a bunch of screens in there with awful software. If you go all screens, just commit like Tesla. If you can't beat Tesla, just stick with minimal screens and use buttons.
Somewhere between 2010 and 2020, most automakers went crazy with their designs and it went all downhill from there.
I have a 2020 Fiat 500 Abarth, and it is absolutely perfect: There is a screen (I think 7") for Android Auto/CarPlay/radio/nav, and every single other function in the car has a physical button. It is also absolutely gorgeous - pinnacle of design, IMO
That's about what I want from interior - any builtin infotainment will get out of date, any more electronics is just stuff to eventually break
Our 2021 Volkswagen e-Up is like this. There is a tiny(like 3" tiny) screen for the radio, bluetooth and reverse camera, everything else is analogue and has physical buttons. It's honestly best of the best Volkswagen design, what they did with their newer cars in terms of interior usability is a travesty.
They fell for Tesla-fication ... and are only now waking up to the mistake.
i still miss the interior of my 2010 fiat punto
From this year all EU cars will have physical buttons for heater controls, media etc.
Not sure why would you think EU automakers fail at making modern cars, also, you're generalizing 40+ car automakers in one basket.
The US controls the oil monopoly, where as China controls battery minerals.
The US can’t compete in electric vehicles solely due to lack of control over the complete supply chain.
This is exactly so. Not only is the USA hurting itself by distancing itself from it's former allys in policy and trade but it's forcing the rest of the world including EU to look more towards east for trade partners and temporarily for military support until Germany rearms itself.
Canadians already took the lead and are now taking steps to let Chinese EV manufacturers into the Canadian markets with less tax/tariff.
Meanwhile Europe is still struggling a lot with coming to terms with new world order. They've been sucking up to the USA too long since the WW2. German economy is largely dependant on car manufacturing and China is threatening this. But something is going to have to give now.
Are you talking about ICE car enthusiasts only? For general car modders and enthusiasts, it may take a few more generations of production releases before more crop up, but I think more EV car enthusiasts will emerge after more and lower cost EV powered systems come out from factory systems optimized for higher volume. With that sheer amount of gear accessible over time, custom makers and mod products will find ways to modify and reassemble it.
> And let’s be real, “car enthusiasts” are going to disappear in one or two generations.
Not sure if you have realized this, but we have a pretty decent numbers of horse enthusiasts now.
Sure, but compared to an era when horses were used as a practical form of transport the number is effectively zero. Horses are a novelty that wealthy people play with. ICE cars will go the same way.
I think we are going to be driving hybrids in large numbers for several decades until there's a new battery technology that triples energy density over the state of the art now.
It can be invented sooner of course, technology prediction never really works.
Apart from Toyotas, hybrids are kind of unpopular precisely because they're a compromise. Not many people who do make the switch to EV go back.
Additional tipping points will come when cities start banning combustion engines on emissions grounds. Then gas stations start closing. After a while you get the reverse condition to EV range anxiety: having to drive further and further out of your way to fill up. Maybe you get a script-flipping service, an EV comes to the few remaining unconverted combustion vehicles with a small bowser of fuel.
But that is far in the future, long after my recently purchased ICE needs replacing.
The 1970s suggests that when gas stations start closing they may close a lot faster than people expect. Gas has a weird margin and is often something of a "loss leader" to convenience stores (or now full supermarkets). On the supply side it is capital-heavy and demand-driven in interesting ways that will respond to demand drops in terms of a "ratchet effect", in which many types of temporary shutdowns will result in permanent shutdowns that will be more expensive to restart than there should be investment interest.
Gas logistics is fascinating with how many possible places exist for disruption (in the negative sense more than the tech sense) to cause domino chains.
Things have the possibility to get "very interesting" in a unique shutdown spiral. I don't know how soon we'll see it, or if we'll see it, but if it happens I don't think it is "far" in the future, even as the 1970s starts to feel too far out of cultural memory to use as an allegory.
Almost everyone I know with an EV also has another car right now.
This is nonsense. Hybrids are outselling EVs in the US.
Hybrid adoption in the US is soaring. It's doubled in just a few years. They're hugely popular in the US precisely because they're NOT a compromise.
They are hugely popular in the US because there are more of them for sale and they have a lot of momentum from Toyota getting lost in the Hydrogen distraction.
From the perspective of a BEV with a modern range, hybrids have terrible all-electric range (if they even have true electric range) and worse maintenance schedules/cost of ownership. That's the compromise: less weight for good batteries for pure electric range and higher cost of ownership for high weight moving parts that you don't need in trips below electric range.
>and worse maintenance schedules/cost of ownership
Sorry, but this is simply incorrect. The Toyota Prius has the most reliable powertrain on the American market in most studies. This is the decades old Toyota hybrid planetary gearset engine and eCVT. It has less moving wear parts than an ICE engine, a generous warranty, absorbs brake wear, etc. It's pretty umambigious at this point, so I'm not sure where you're sourcing your facts from (vibes?).
Given this fact wasn't understood, there isn't much more content to engage with. Modern hybrids are popular because they're very good and side-step all of the myriad problems with electric vehicles.
More reliable than the average ICE, statistically, I will grant you. Though I think that has more to do with Toyota dominating US auto manufacturing reliability statistics in general, more than particulars of hybrids over ICE. The comparison, however, was to a full ("uncompromised") BEV. A full BEV has much fewer moving parts than ICE or Hybrid. (Especially because good electric motors don't even constitute "moving parts" when compared to an internal combustion engine, thanks to magnets.)
It doesn’t matter that it “has less moving parts”. It is the most reliable powertrain on the market full stop, including full electric powertrains.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...
Solid state lithium batteries, which are starting to roll out now, are big enough jump. They have 50-80% more capacity which gives enough range for a day of driving. They charge faster so can charge on regular stops. They aren't flammable.
Cars don't need triple energy density, 600mi range and 15min charge is plenty. There is cost factor, but batteries have gotten cheap that isn't an issue. People talk about lithium shortage but it hasn't shown up.
> 600mi range and 15min charge is plenty.
Agreed.
So, it would be a matter of how fast the solid state batteries you speak of make their ways into actual cars. Right now, there aren't any.
And battery tech has always over promised and under delivered.
The smartest direction for someone manufacturing for the US market right now is probably EREVs aka serial hybrids - pure electric drivetrain, onboard gas generator. Only use gas when you're taking the kids to Grandma's, or when some obstacle prevents you from charging normally. Ford seems to be going in this direction, possibly a little late.
I agree, this is likely the technology for the next few decades. Maybe with some supercapacitors or something like that thrown in.
Electric motors are far more efficient at producing mechanical energy than a engine+transmission combo is. But at the same time, batteries suck.
"If I asked what people wanted they'd have asked for a longer range horse." Henry Ford, probably.
Maybe you’re the kind of person who believes the glass is always full if you can make the glass arbitrarily small.
If I’m a glass enthusiast or glass-filling-liquid enthusiast, sure if the alternative is those things not existing!
I get the impression that what the Chinese want out of a car is different and, realistically, a bit more aligned with the trajectory of human progress as well.
I remember the (UK) Top Gear episode, which I'd guess must be at least 15 years old now, where they were talking about Chinese car brands, like Roewe, and they were ripping on them for being a bit crap in various ways (performance, not that fun to drive, etc.), but they also highlighted that what's important to Chinese car buyers is equipment level and having the latest tech[0] so, even though the cars at the time weren't the best, they were packed with gadgets and creature comfort.
Add 15 years of rapid progress onto that and it's not surprising that China is dominating in the EV space, because it aligns so well with what Chinese buyers might be looking for in a vehicle.
[0] And having seen what traffic jams in Chinese cities can look like it entirely makes sense to optimise for comfort and engagement whilst sitting still or in stop go traffic, than for driving experience when you're never really going to experience the handling anyway.
I am in Portugal right now. You know something we don’t have often here? Garages.
For example in my neighborhood most cars are parallel parked, people are living in centuries old houses converted into high density condos, there are no garages.
So what is more practical, charging your car overnight without an electric plug or going to the gas station for a few minutes?
You use kerbside charging. Unlike petrol, electricity comes to you.
This is how it needs to work, but in practice it doesn't really exist right now. (And, in the few places where it does exist, the price basically destroys a lot of the running costs advantages of an EV).
I do have a garage and 'fuel' is half the cost of my previous, smaller ICE. We're considering solar power to get it practically free.
There's some nicer differences like leaving the air-conditioning on constantly because there's no pollution and it's also practically free. It's nice to have a giant battery instead of requiring an engine to constantly recharge it to run the electronics.
That's cost, not practicality. Like it or not, the EV isn't as flexible when it comes to ownership, because you need a place to charge it. A product that is less practical has to be cheaper to compete in the market.
Depends completely on the EV and usage patterns. Here's one of the more interesting points in the design space: https://silence-mobility.nissan.de/
>>A product that is less practical has to be cheaper to compete in the market.
Unless the downside doesn't matter to you, then obviously it doesn't. Our e-Up was more expensive than a regular petrol Up, but it was absolutely worth paying the extra for the convenience of being able to charge it at home - it's like having your own personal petrol station in your own driveway.
For someone else, that might have been an inconvenience and the car would have to be much cheaper to offset the hassle - for us it was worth the premium. So it's not so clear cut as you present it.
With batteries reaching 800-1000km per charge and most people doing around 30km a day of driving (way less for people living in dense areas), you basically only need to charge your car once every two weeks.
>>So what is more practical, charging your car overnight without an electric plug or going to the gas station for a few minutes?
100x charging your car overnight with a plug. I don't think people who don't own an EV realize how great that is. Imagine if your petrol car magically got refilled with fuel every single night - add up all of those "few minutes" spent at a petrol station over your lifetime, and realize how much time you're getting back.
>> people are living in centuries old houses converted into high density condos, there are no garages
And yeah, that's a problem everywhere, not just in Portugal. Here in the UK a lot of people wouldn't have anywhere to charge at home.
Please don’t repeat the myth that your car is getting refilled every very night unless you are charging to 100% every night or are willing to concede your range is 80% of the stated range.
I do recharge to 100% every night - is that unusual in any way?
Between batteries getting bigger and home charging for many reasons capping at Level 2 (US "dryer plug" / UK regular plug) many EVs don't have enough time to recharge to 100% every night. That said, any over night gains are still better than gas can do.
(The unique US problem that the easiest charging is Level 1 is a complication here, too, because it especially can't recharge modern battery sizes overnight. But overnight Level 1 charging is still a game changer versus no overnight gas refueling. The "what's the point of charging when it can't do 100% overnight?" crowd can be quite vocal, despite gas cars having no easy way to refuel overnight.)
I want that throaty Lotus Exige shame only 260s legal in US. No electric for me not because I'm against it but I love that sound, real sound. I know Tesla Plaid can do 0-60 in 1.9 but so can Corvette C8. Not that Exige is that powerful but it's a sexy car.
This is awesome to me https://youtu.be/0c9prOTdp_M?si=r0q3vqohdVNw7HpF&t=181
as a wannabe "car enthusiast", I'd happily buy a fun EV if one existed for a reasonable price. the xiaomi su7 for example looks incredible, and I'd jump on that if sold here in the US in a heartbeat.
but for the majority of people, yeah, I don't think they really care either way. if we had the infrastructure and EVs were sold at the prices that people are seeing for the Chinese EVs, I think they'd switch away from ICE fairly easily.
Car enthusiast here. I raced in Formula Ford in Europe in my younger days. I still dream about the day I drove a 911 GT2. Nearly every car I’ve ever owned has been a manual.
But with the ridiculous tax incentives here in Australia (at least while they last), my new car turned out to be an EV. Specifically the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. And let me tell you, while the logical part of my brain knows that the gear shifts and the exhaust notes and everything about it is “fake”, when I’m driving it around a track or a challenging B road, every part of my body is fooled into thinking it’s real. And reluctant as I might be to admit it, it might just be the most fun car I’ve ever had
Is it perfect? No. I wish it was 10cm lower to the ground. I wish it was at least 600kg lighter. But it has completely disabused me of the notion that electric cars can’t be fun.
The Ioniq 5N is extremely funny on paper. It's not wildly expensive, nor is it greatly modified from stock, but the engineers decided to just completely overspec the torque on what is otherwise an ordinary family car. So you get a 0-60 time of about three seconds.
I'm slightly surprised there aren't more cheap electric "hot hatches", but I think that market is dead even in ICE cars - young people don't have much free cash, aren't interested, and the insurers won't let them either.
The Volvo EX30 / MG4 XPower would fit in the hot hatch / sub-compact crossover crossover. Both cars are the size of a raised VW Polo at 4.2m length while having over 400hp and around 3.5 secs to 60.
While not exactly cheap, you can get the MG for under 30k eur if you shop around for some discounts and the volvo at around 35-40k. considering a 300hp golf R is over 50k eur they're pretty great options for some cheap fun. Cheap as in total cost of ownership, not just purchase price.
Also, the SC01 people just announced that they plan to bring it to Europe [1] so that's gonna be a great option.
[1] https://insideevs.com/news/784884/sc01-electric-coupe-roadst...
Yeah, it does look like the Hot Hatch category is returning to Europe with strong EV options. (Nature is healing?)
At the moment US automakers are stuck in a "cross-over is the new hatchback" position because Americans got into a tragedy of the commons that has trended towards larger vehicles at the expense of everyone's safety (and energy efficiency and weight to passenger efficiency and general vehicle coolness).
And that’s based on a family car platform—wait until you drive something more purpose-built. Take a look at the Renault 5 Turbo E, the work-in-progress electric A110 and 718, or the more affordable SC01. Fun EVs are definitely coming in the next 5 to 10 years.
Car enthusiasts never disappear, but they will be a small part of the market just like always.
Maybe it's naive of me, but I think the enthusiast will still have a place in the future, just as they can now own cars without 3-point seatbelts, catalytic converters, traction control, ABS, airbags, crumple zones, etc. all of which have been mandated for many decades.
EU car manufacturers decided that cheaper-to-make electric cars must be sold as luxury vehicles and failed to achieve economies of scale China did with their underwhelming initial models they kept improving relentlessly every year.
The corner is turning on this, with e.g. the Renault 5 EV being extremely popular: https://bestsellingcarsblog.com/2026/01/france-full-year-202...
I've test driven one, fun little car, decent provision of some non-touchscreen controls.
Ironically I think Tesla really opened up the EV market at all in the West by starting as a luxury option and working downwards. People don't want to feel they're taking a "hair shirt" option. "EVs are for rich people" has probably sold more cars than "EVs are for poor people" messaging would have.
The VW ID4 is winning the middle of the range family SUV market: https://electrek.co/2025/02/28/volkswagen-id-4-best-selling-...
It's not to my taste that bonnet lines have got higher, SUV style, but it appears to be what the public wants to buy.
The ID4 is such a pleasure to drive. Reminds me of a VW Parati from the 90s I used to drive, soft but not boat-y. Apparently it also sells pretty well in China, which is a huge statement to its appeal given the competition there.
How many generations are we even into cars?
Maybe 4ish? Most kids alive but not yet driving are likely to own only hybrid ma or electrics.
Seems like a relatively short term problem overall.
I'm not a car enthusiast. Unfortunately, I'm also not a phone-on-wheels enthusiast either.
Well, currently US _are_ ICE enthusiasts, lamentable as that may be.
Nothing is done ever. Remember when the U.S. deeply feared Japan's rapidly growing economy?
Whenever I read or hear definitive statements like that I heavily bet on the other side.
> Remember when the U.S. deeply feared Japan's rapidly growing economy
They DID fear them and took action to gimp their industry. Read the Plaza Accord and the aftermath to the Japanese economy.
“Americans are stuck in ICE engines because they’ve been told they’re “car enthusiasts”
Who told them?
The marketers of the same companies that aren't trying to sell them small, cheap, practical EVs and want everyone to pay for high margin trucks and SUVs.
> Practicality beats enthusiasm for 95% of car use.
About two years ago I rented an electric car for a few days. I felt like I wasted a ton of time finding a charging station, jumping through phone app hoops to get the charging process started, and then waiting for the car to charge. I've stayed away from electric rentals since, even though they're often cheaper.
Comparing renting a new type of car when you have to figure everything out for 2 days then return it, to owning a car, where you also have to figure everything out, but only for the first days, not the 600 days afterwards, is not really comparable.
Also, when you own a car you charge it at home and work, so you don't really wait for the car to charge very often.
And the next time you rent a car, it will be a bit simpler as you have done it once before. And even quicker/simpler the time after that etc.
It is 100% compatible when your basis is just finding a local gas station to fill up. 600 days later, you may know where a charging station is, but not any more convenient... yet.
You don't need a charging station for 99 per cent of your rides. You can charge daily at home and forget about recharging except when making a long trip.
If you usually make trips that are over the battery life, that's a different thing though. But most people don't have that problem.
That makes it even more realistic. I have the charger in my garage, I happened to need a charger to get home on my last trip (120 mile round trip, the car claimed 220 miles of charge but that didn't account for the cold winter), but I had to open an app and such just to use it. (at least I had the app and an account - but my credit card was expired so I had to type numbers to get it activated). I had to search for that charger - there was exactly one charger within 30 miles (only 7kw, but it gave me enough range to get home while I ate lunch).
Meanwhile I passed half a dozen gas stations. No app/account needed at any of them, just tap/swipe my credit card and fill.
Most people don't have the charging problem often, but when you make a mistake you sometimes will need it. The system doesn't work. There needs to be chargers all over, and they need to be quick/easy. I don't want to download an app for a charger I will likely never visit again in my life.
Under Biden we had laws requiring chargers to meet reliability requirements, use an open standard, take credit card payments without requiring an app, and build more in rural areas to close the coverage gap. Most of that has been scrapped by the current administration, going as far as removing chargers that were already installed.
This is the equivalent of setting up a developer environment for charging a car. Once you have a car that's working, and you know how to connect to the app and charge it, almost all these problems go away. If you're in a place that has a lot of public chargers near your destination that you're already going to, then it's even easier, and it just becomes trivial.
That being said, I don't think I would want to rent a car that didn't have a place to charge it or a very easy-to-use fast charger nearby.
Until NACS and plug and go are uniquitous, going on a trip not in a Tesla is a gamble of having the right app on your phone, and that you will be able to reach working chargers.
I think we are still a couple of years away from other manufacturers catching up to Tesla and making road trips for most people useful.
> jumping through phone app hoops
The very idea you effectively need a mobile phone to charge your car is mind boggling. The mess of proprietary charging networks and registrations is needless complexity that puts people off hiring (and ownership) of EVs.
I have little RFID cards from 2 charging companies that I can tap to their chargers to charge.
Also, many chargers support tapping a credit card on them to charge.
The credit card tapping option should be required by law. This registering apps and fobs flow is the worst ux imaginable. And while we are at it the car should hold the payment info. Plugging it in should be enough. I know it’s all coming.
I agree but I'd go further: Cash should be required by law, we shouldn't require people to have a bank account just to buy electricity.
Your comment is proving my point!
(Proprietary networks are a mess, and ordinary debit/credit card payments for EV charging are far from universal)
For rentals I get that. We own 2 EVs and a charger at home. Easiest driving experience ever. We just plug it in.
I’m terms of upgrading your daily life, never going to a petrol station is a great upgrade.
Haven’t quite made it in our house, we went once or twice last year to charge on a long trip. Didn’t go in.
Where are you based?
Here is a different narrative: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1qh5kdg/us_pres...
I remember when /r/technology was more about technology, now it is /r/politics with a microchip hat. I ignored that sub long ago.
Not that many Americans are car enthusiasts. The most popular cars have been basic commuters for decades.
While that is true, the new car market has narrowed to the point where most of the buyers want something overpowered for their money. The most popular cars are actually buying these when they are 10+ years old.
(I śaw recently that the USA market is about 16M cars.. this would have been low figure years ago. But they are barely selling 'basic commuter cars'.)
I guess it depends on how you define car enthusiast.
A lot of Americans spend far more on their vehicle than they need to and so I would classify them as enthusiasts even if they couldn't tell you how many cylinders their engine has.
I would define car enthusiast as someone who at least knows how many cylinders. For the purpose of the EV discussion, the people who don't know that aren't the people who want an ICE.
We often have very little choice about that, though. You can't buy something no one is selling.
It's hard to get basic commuter without overload of tech these days
What do you mean? If you look at a Toyota Camry/Corolla, there is barely anything that is "techy" in 2026. (not in a negative way)
Certain tech is cheap. I wouldn't classify that as non-basic. Chuck a few screens in the cabin is cheap. Matrix LED headlights less so.
Aren't the most popular "cars" in the US actually SUVs and light trucks?
Mostly. The Camry, Civic, and Corolla are up there though.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g64457986/bestselling-cars...
A lot of them are those mini SUVs like the CR-V. The thing about that list is it's grouped by model, and the share of non-trucks is more fragmented.
> Meanwhile, European makers are stuck not knowing what to do, make Americans happy or compete with the Chinese.
Huh? This comment sounds extremely America-centric to me. Porsche sells more cars into Europe than North America, despite taking a bigger there (-13-16% vs 0%)!
In general I don't think Porsche is representative of the car market as a whole, given their cars are all premium sports cars to at least some degree.
If you want more representative numbers look at more mass-market manufacturers. Notably, the Volkswagen group has a huge 20%+ market share in the EU, while it is below 5% in the USA. Renault is another example of a strong EU-centric brand and manufacturer with over 10% market share, even over 25% at home in France. Ford is a good example of the opposite, having 13% market share in the USA and only 2-3% here. Stellantis is strong in both markets, but has significant differentiation, even having different brands in both markets.
The technologies were developed in Europe and the USA.
The top selling vehicle in the world is a US EV? I think we're behind the point where all vehicles can be EV's, we still need ICE for certain things, but the US is arguably the only other country in the world where we produce EV's competitive with China
It has everything to do with regulation and almost nothing to do with "car enthusiasts".
It's been a bizarre watch. The automotive industry (and nations that rely on it) has sabotaged itself for a good decade. Unsurprisingly, China has caught up. Classic case of 'we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas'.
Unions sabotaged automation efforts and limited hours worked. Quarterly financial pressures kept research investments to a minimum. Nations refused to scale up nuclear, and cost of electricity kept rising. The one well-run EV company (Tesla) decided to destroy its brand value overnight. Toyota went on a pig-headed hydrogen tangent and Honda still hasn't tried to make an EV. Korea has done surprisingly well. But, they're the exception that proves the rule.
China's rise as a manufacturing superpower was inevitable. But its rise as an automotive superpower involved major capitulation by the primary competition.
Please share how unions sabotaged automation efforts. As far as I can tell, unions are losing every fight these days.
Unions in countries like Germany and France are much more powerful. Especially VW is extremely unionized, half of the seats on the Supervisory Board are allocated to worker representatives. These employee representatives are elected or selected by the workers (usually via union and works council processes), so VW employees indirectly influence board decisions through these seats.
That doesn't explain how unions have sabotaged automation
> Unions sabotaged automation efforts and limited hours worked.
It's completely rational for unions, and the workers, to prevent automation. The short term results of automation are only negative for workers, and positive for every other part of the market (customers, suppliers, capitalists). The results might be positive in the long run, but why should only one group suffer.
Perhaps, the capital-owning class could make the deal positive for the workers by giving the workers ownership of a substantial portion of the firm. Then whats good for the firm would become good for workers, and the union would not oppose automation so much.
> but of the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
It's done. They're already the premier automotive superpower now. It might not seem like it in Europe and USA, but anywhere else in the world they are dominating. I live in Morocco and I am not exaggerating when I say that every week I see a new Chinese brand on the road. Not just cars of the same brand, completely new brands. Dacia and a lot of PSA cars are built in Morocco, so naturally they always had a strong positioning here, but now I'm seeing more BYDs than DACIA's most popular car, the Duster. It's anecdotal but it's quite telling considering the foothold French brands have always had here.
Here's a chart showing the sheer dominance of Chinese brands on the EV market in Morocco. 6 out of 10 models are Chinese.
https://www.wandaloo.com/files/2026/01/aivam-bilan-marche-au...
>every week I see a new Chinese brand on the road
And I think the difference is going to be apparent 15-20 years from now when new parts are needed for these models.
With the big boys like Ford, Toyota etc I can trust that they manufactured (and still manufacture) parts with warehouses full of them and I can always find the part I need to repair a vehicle.
I very much doubt that we will see the same thing with Chinese auto companies, even premier ones like BYD.
> And I think the difference is going to be apparent 15-20 years from now when new parts are needed for these models.
Perhaps unstated, but this is going to be like trying to find parts for my Nokia 3210 (current age: 27). EVs are still in the "rapid improvement" phase, and by the time the battery warranty expires (5-7 years) the cars available on the current market will be significantly better in all respects.
On the other hand, they just have far fewer "parts" in the first place. Early indication is very good for lifetimes of the non-battery parts.
I expect the median EV of today to have a shorter life than a corresponding ICE, but the EV of 10 years time to have a much longer one. Which is going to make all the stupid issues around infotainment and subscription issues more acute.
The average age of all cars on UK roads has just hit 10 years: https://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/average-car-in-th... ; EVs skew young because they're new.
No EV is going to run 20 years from now unless replacing batteries will start costing significantly less.
In Europe there's plenty of Chinese cars to be honest.
And they often outsell European cars price-to-price, even through tariffs. It's crazy.
The whole topic of tariffs on their cars is also very complicated that European automakers aren't in favour of, because large parts of their sales come from outside Europe.
thanks, how is the consumer response ? they love it ? quality is good ? and prices too ?
in the australian market theres often comparison between how BYD/(chinese brands) may unseat Tesla (as the scale EV first mover), but I haven't seen what I think is the prize, which is BYD want to take on Toyota as the de facto king of global car making. They want the whole car market, not just EV and are already setup to take that on.
Especially as Toyota seems structurally unable to create a good EV. They produced one completely bare-bones model 30 years ago and never expanded past that. At least they're keeping some knowledge of the parts by having PHEVs, but I don't think they're on the leading edge of anything. Maybe they don't need to be and can buy everything from other suppliers, but they're going to be doing a whole lot less than they currently do and not sure they'll keep their profit margin.
Toyota hybrids are full hybrids however, not mild hybrids like other manufactures, so all you really need is a bigger battery and charger. My 10 year old RAV4 Hybrid (not plug-in) can deliver 160kW just from the electric motors, without the engine. That's 3x a Dacia Spring. They have the technology for motors and control electronics, and they know it works long term without issues.
Most of the European EVs are basically just electric city cars, unable to drive long ranges due to small batteries and limited fast charging. And most of them after 100,000km will need a new battery. Doesn't really fit in with Toyota's 'long term reliability' stance.
I can't blame Toyota for waiting for the technology to mature before they go all in on EVs. Plus they do have the bz4x / RX which are full EVs you can buy today.
That's why I said they're not necessarily out of the running, like Mazda or Subaru. But that technology isn't quite right; it's two motors, connected to a planetary gearset and in a conventional location to a gasoline engine. They're still thinking "engine here, transmission there, differential in this part" and not working on "how can we reduce cost if we don't have one prime mover that gets really hot". Their motors aren't the most efficient technology and so they aren't learning as much as their competitors are who are shipping lighter, more-powerful motors.
And they could still be right. The future could be 100-mi-EV PHEVs with ever-smaller engines and they'd be the best at it. But I think BYD will prove that wrong outside the USA.
> Most of the European EVs are basically just electric city cars, unable to drive long ranges due to small batteries and limited fast charging. And most of them after 100,000km will need a new battery. Doesn't really fit in with Toyota's 'long term reliability' stance.
Australian cities must be enormous for this statement to make any semblance of sense.
Not that big, but absolutely enourmous distances between them. The inter-city highway infrastructure is lacking in EV chargers, but it's getting better.
I've been pondering this, especially given that Japan is not an oil-producing country, and concluded: it's the internal politics of the engine group.
That is, the people who design engines and run the engines division have sufficient heft within the organization that they can prevent a good car being made that doesn't have an engine in it.
It's sort of worked out for them as they have a big niche in the taxi market, and other high milage users who've not taken the EV plunge yet. If you want the most efficient vehicle that still uses petrol, buy a Toyota.
To me it feels like Toyota have over-committed to parallel hybrids, because they did them first and best, and are now unwilling to move on (to EVs and serial hybrids) even now that it's past time.
>Then I think you see an early indication not just of electric car dominance, but of the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
I thought we were there already tbh. Chinese cars have gone from laughably bad to quality parity in less than a decade. Like even 2 years ago, I was still hearing "the paint the paint" as the last remaining issue. But I dont hear that anymore.
Parity? Their EVs are streets ahead, doubly so for the price.
Other than price, in what ways are they streets ahead? I’m a bit of an EV nerd and that would not be my assessment at all. Unfortunately for Western manufacturers price/volume is probably the most important thing right now, so they are still in serious trouble.
Well the software for one (excluding Tesla), it's faster, more advanced, more creative (probably more gimmicks but still). Domestically (in China) they also offer much higher charging wattage. But yes quality is at parity and they're cheaper.
Most Chinese cars still have massive software quality issues that you don’t hear about because there are few of them around here. ADAS are usually much worse as well.
My biggest software issue with my GWM relates to how they gamed the DPF, which is a local requirement. They built in the required automaticaly regenerating DPF, but also set the temperature/rev requirement so that it never automatically regenerates (even if it indicates it is doing so). So I have to manually regenerate every other month.
Otherwise the software is pretty good, with the occasional midflight reboot.Its definitely no worse than the honda I ran previously.
Interiors imho.
Their interiors on midrange+ vehicles seems leagues ahead of European automakers.
A 100k+ euros Mercedes Benz E class doesn't even get you real leather from a decade (by the way I prefer MB tex, but what are you paying for exactly?).
I dont drive one of their EV's, but the 20+ year veteran Diesel Engineer who took my DPF filter complaint escalation does and thats really all I need to know. After I run my current vehicle into the ground, that will probably be next.
Similar story here. I know a guy who does chip tuning as his career. He bought a Tesla last year, and he's more than happy with it.
Have you ever ridden in a BYD? It's super loud, horrible suspension, seats are extremely uncomfy, everything is cheap with a fancy looking facade. If you need a car to go from point A - B and can't afford any luxury, it's fine. But it's a bare minimum vehicle with looks to appeal to status.
I have ridden in a BYD and it was the opposite experience: excellent suspension, unusually smooth ride, great seats. A few things on the dashboard did look a bit tacky. But overall, massive difference from where Chinese cars were even 5 years ago.
Replying from a BYD now. I wish HN could attach photos.
It's literally quieter than a bicycle, except for a whirring when the car powers up. We've come across people and animals standing in the middle of the road because they didn't realize the car was right behind them.
Soundproofing is good too. It comes with karaoke built in and it's more sound proof than many karaoke rooms.
Suspension is much better than my previous car but I'll reserve judgement until it's also 5 years old.
Seats are comfortable enough to sleep in - some people are even using it as an alternative to a hotel, because you can keep the air-conditioning on all night and the seats go all the way down to a horizontal position. There's a window up top so you can watch the stars at night too.
Also the seats have air-conditioning in case your back is hot too.
Tesla has shown that you can buy usd100K cars with dubious quality and terrible materials.
That makes it easier for brands who sell cheaper models imho. It is all about status, and right now having an EV and a fricking 17" TV on the dashboard trumps everything else.
Havent ridden in a BYD, but I absolutely abhor the Tesla interior, its like riding around in a rickety iPad.
BYD's seem (super subjective) to make less road noise outside of the vehicle. I still get snuck up on by them in car parks, but I have tuned in to the Tesla hum and can hear them a while off.
I think you are a few years out of date. Certainly they used to be not great. They are way better now.
Most of what you’re describing applies to Teslas too, tho.
Have you seen the paint schemes on new Chinese cars? Wow. Embedded glitter, chameleon colors, while the European car industry is doing boring primer like paint schemes. I always joke that they applied clear coat onto primer. And that's on >60k models.
The "greige" colour appalls me. Not only does it look like primer, it looks like the grey of old PC cases under a brown of smoke. Either basic white or basic black would be better. Or classic metallic silver.
In terms of quality they are there, now it's expansion. I, for one, am quite excited for all this competition. I don't care who makes my level 4/5 self driver, I just want it now.
China's 2025 numbers are out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_motor_veh...
They're up roughly 10% over last year and will likely hit 35% of global production. The big shift over the last decade (beyond their growing market share) is that their overall quality has caught up to (and in many cases surpassed) the traditional incumbents.
Barring a global war, I think they're unstoppable at this point.
I remember when Japan was supposed to take over the world in the '80s, to the point that "back to the future 2" had Americans speaking Japanese to their managers.
Toyota did become the dominant producer, but American and European car makers (and now Koreans and Chinese) are still around. I wouldn't bet on total domination from China anytime soon.
Well, China is not accepting/going through a Plaza Accord kind of an agreement. So history might not replay itself this time.
Yes I remember, too. The crucial difference is that Japan's population is one third of the US while China's is 4 times the US (and 3x the EU).
Basically Japan never had the numbers to "take over the world" while China has them even if natality is way down.
If China had the same clout relative to population as Japan, Germany, Korea, or the US it would dwarf everyone else, and that's why the US are in a panic about China.
And funny thing, all three countries car industries were started by the USA.
China spent a lot of money for this position in the market.
> the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
This is dangerous, geo-politically, should China ever go to war with the West in any capacity.
In WW2, America's car factories gave it a decisive advantage, as part of the war machine.
Ford’s Willow Run plant produced one B-24 bomber every ~63 minutes at peak output. General Motors built tanks, aircraft engines, trucks. Chrysler: tanks and artillery.
The West de-industrialised, as a result of our globalist policy (thanks to the WTO, WEF and other supranational organisations). We have decimated our own military industrial production capability.
Meanwhile China has taken exactly the opposite approach.
https://www.ft.com/content/6474a1a9-4a88-4f76-9685-f8ccb080d... : "Renault to team up with French defence group to make drones for Ukraine"
I don't think the deindustrialization narrative is quite as bad as the doomers would have it, although it's notable that both sides in the Ukraine war depend on Chinese drone electronics.
(we've also forgotten the nuclear war narrative of the 80s: it's irrelevant if you can build a bomber in 63 minutes if it only takes the ballistic missiles 43 minutes from launch to arrival, at which point the war or at least industrial society is over)
What's in the mind of European political oligarchy really?
What do you mean?
great analysis
I don’t think anyone is going to keep an advantage in car manufacturing. The way we build them might totally change in a short duration with the rapid advancement in robotics
Most advancements in robotics have been for highly generalized robots. We’ve been using robotics to build cars for like 50+ years. They’re extremely good.
China may become the superpower on volume but I would be surprised if the upper quartile (by price) of western buyers were interested in Chinese vehicles. Too much quality issues across the board on Chinese made products, unless you have a trusted non-Chinese company with stringent quality control (e.g. Apple model).
I’m sure they can handily win the lower end of the market though. And yes I’m aware many western manufacturers are shit tier quality.
I don’t think this is accurate, Chinese firms are increasingly moving up the quality chain. You might want to look at some of the reviews of Xiaomi’s recently launched car. Also, Tesla Shanghai is one of their best factories, much better quality scores than Fremont iirc.
Having a totally local, integrated supply chain pays dividends in a lot of ways, as does leading in production volume. Tim Cook also gave that interview where he was just talking about the incredibly deep bench of industrial talent that you just can’t find outside China at this point - that labor cost wasn’t why they produced there.
The issue is not actual quality, it’s perceived quality. Chinese companies will fight decades of history and negative perception to reach top of the market consumers, a segment obsessed with perception.
Then again, it's been done before.
- Japanese consumer goods were perceived as junk until the tipping point was reached, and then they were perceived as high-quality, easily equalling or surpassing Western goods. That took ~30 years (1950 to 1980, say). Older readers will recall the controversy over Akio Morita's (Morita-san being the founder of Sony) statements in the book "The Japan that can Say No" (edit: see [0]), which seems strangely prescient in the sense that it ignited a lot of (US) debate around dependence on foreign semiconductors.
- Then there was Taiwan, again, a 30 year cycle from about 1970 to 2000. Taiwan used to be known for cheap textiles, consumer dross, and suchlike. Not now...
My point is that the way to get better at products is to make them and make them and make them, and eventually an export-led country reaches a tipping point where the consumers flip over, and their perception changes.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Japan_That_Can_Say_No
Exactly, I grew up during the beginning if the Japanese auto boom in the US. My grandfather was one of the first people in his group to buy one of the Japanese cars when they became highly reliable and his friend heckled him about it for awhile. Until that is he wasn't constantly repairing the thing. It got much better gas mileage. Wasn't getting ate up by rust. And it ran well over 150k miles, when US cars typically fell apart before 100k miles.
Rinse and repeat for Korean cars. And now China are deep into their cycle too. They're already producing high quality, at half the price, and I've noticed that the quality narrative is changing.
Regardless of where they are perception wise, the long term lesson is clear - local manufacturers may ride the "quality" bandwagon for a while, but ultimately it's a losing strategy.
ICE cars, and manufacturers who don't gave an EV strategy are already inside their Kodak moment. It's fairly obvious that at some point "all" cars will be EV, just like "all" cameras are digital. Those who remain ICE only will fade into obscurity.
Unfortunately the politicians in the US right now are driving a narrative away from EVs (and Tesla has become semi-toxic). Which in turn affects local manufacturers planning near term sales. By the time the mood swings it may be hard to catch up.
Or maybe not. Maybe they come late to the party simply skipping a bunch of iterations, going straight to great, cheap, reliable. Time will tell I guess.
>Rinse and repeat for Korean cars
My last few cars have been Hyundai's. Unfortunately my driving habits don't allow full EV driving, but I did go with one of their (non-plugin) hybrids.
And almost all of my family has moved to Hyundai over time. The pure US car companies have been dumping out total crap for the longest time, it's an easy sale for almost anything else.
Yeah I still don't understand this argument. The only cars I ever hear of (in Europe) with issues are German or French cars (not all brands). (Don't see many American brands here).
Did everyone forget the Kia/Hyundai lack of immobilizer US debacle already?
Where are you based that you hold this impression? Because globally BYD is perceived as having much better build quality than Tesla, rightly or wrongly.
Unless you live under a rock, China has more than worked around this, look at Volvo.
You realize this change by country, right? At least in my country (Brazil), Chinese cars already have a reputation for quality lol
just got an etron because my partner wanted a xpeng, guy is super happy in that xpeng and I gotta say, he's right
Etron is Audi?
From what I've heard, the quality is pretty good. The problem is when something breaks, you can be waiting for (sometimes very expensive) parts for months while not being able to use your car.
That's not particularly unique amongst car manufacturers.
Maybe I got lucky, but I drove a 2011 model Ford from 2013-2025, and the worst part delay I experienced in that time was when they had to get next-day parts from a nearby city.
It's worth pointing out that the F150 has been the best selling truck for 40 years and the best selling consumer vehicle for most of them as well. There's bound to be plenty of parts for them sitting around.
I've got one from 2011 that I'm still driving myself, and aside from one minor thing, I've not had a single problem with it, despite putting it through its paces.
Ford is definitely of the better manufacturers for this. Ubiquitous parts, most models are quite reliable, and a robust service network that's been embedded for decades. Toyota is another counter-example, and a lot of the incumbents are going to do better than newer brands.
You're speaking of Tesla here, correct?
it took Japan about 25 years of very directed industrial strategy to take the "made in Japan" label from indicating junk to the average American, to indicating a premium/reliable product. China might get there in even less than 25 years but you'll probably still find people holding onto old "chinesium" beliefs long after they should
A key for Japan is also that for various product categories, they don't export (or maybe manufacture at all - I'm just not really familiar with their non-export goods) low-quality goods - I assume because it isn't economical to compete at the low end of the market.
Even though China can compete at the top of many markets, they still also compete at the bottom, which taints their reputation.
Japan never was a threat during that time to countries around it. China is very much a threat to other countries around it and I would feel pretty bad about materially financing yet another war.
I'm beginning to feel this way about the US. Much more comfortable with Chinese foreign policy at this point. At this point, going on the past 50 years or so, it would take something quite extraordinary on China's part to convince me they are going to abuse their power as much as the US has so far. Hopefully I'm not simply being naive.
You need to pay better attention. I hate what Trump is doing to US foriegn policy - but it is still better than China, and there is hope that things will change in the future as elections continue. China doesn't even have that hope.
China is clearly supporting Russia in Ukraine. China is clearly making plans to invade Tiawas (that alone makes them just as bad as the US, even if it hasn't happened yet).
Unless you start a denazification project and start shooting MAGA cultists en-masse, the US is not recovering. This is a rot that goes beyond one man and one party.
Your empire is decaying and it's going to keep lashing out up until it's completely gone.
If we add up "damage to countries around it" in the previous hundred years, I think Japan doesn't look so great.
China conducted one several-week war against Vietnam and annexed Tibet, both over 50 years ago. Other than the longstanding dispute with Taiwan, who are they threatening? Some quibbles over a few Himalayan mountains with India?
They seem quite intent on inching their border closer to the Philippines mainland by building military bases on some shoals that belong to the Philippines.
> Some quibbles
Two wars.
One War. In 1962, i.e. 64 years ago. In meanwhile, US supported genocidal regime of Pakistan killing Hindus and many more in what is now Bangladesh. Sent billions more to Pakistan which are then used to fund terrorist activities in India. and some more recently under Covfefe.
Here's the other one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathu_La_and_Cho_La_clashes
"The Defence Ministry of India reported: 88 killed and 163 wounded on the Indian side, while 340 killed and 450 wounded on the Chinese side, during the two incidents.[6][7]
According to Chinese claims, the number of soldiers killed was 32 on the Chinese side and 65 on the Indian side in Nathu La incident; and 36 Indian soldiers and an 'unknown' number of Chinese were killed in the Cho La incident.[8] "
War might be overstating it a bit, "incident" might be more appropriate, but we can round up in the spirit of comity.
So adding it all up, the Chinese had 1-2 small foreign wars per decade in the 50s-70s, zero since 1979. It still doesn't justify the phrasing "threatening all their neighbors" in 2025, aside from Taiwan specifically.
In the case of the line of control with India, it's reached the point where they're having ritualized fistfights at high altitude for pride, that's just comical. It's not threatening.
Personnel die in those "fistfight", so not comical but also not a war.
Haha that little 'during that time' is doing some heavy lifting there. You don't think there might have been some slight lingering resentment and fear that the slouching monster that Japan was during WWII would come back? I think Japan's neighbors might have felt 'pretty bad' too, but it didn't matter. In the end the money wins.
You mean just like the rest of Europe does against Germany or Italy? Hint: we don't.
Are you implying that there wasn't massive resentment toward Germany and italy in postwar Europe?! Wild claim if so.
The (potential, no experience) quality issues are to me far outweighed by the enabling of yet another country to become a superpower which will then sooner or later result in yet another confrontation. Russia should have taught at least Europe that this sort of trade can only backfire in the longer term. Yes, I realize, China is the world's factory now, but there is no reason that can not change. I'm trying really hard to buy European made products and to use European services where possible. There are still a couple of hard nuts to crack but I'll get there.
In the US for example, most of the US brands are already made in China. They will copy the tooling and put a different brand name on it and you'll have a tool of the same quality for way less cost.
Simply put China is an unrecognized superpower at this point with the investments they've already made. The amount of infrastructure they've built in a decade dwarfs what the West has done in decades.
Sorry, the country with nukes, nuclear submarines, a massive navy and a permanent member on the UN Security Council isn’t recognized as a superpower? By whom?
What massive Navy would that be?
China has an estimated number of 370 battle force ships to the US’s 296 (US has 11 aircraft carriers to China’s 3). China’s total fleet displacement is about half but their ship building capacity is significantly higher. They are generally ranked second today behind the US and have been there since the last 2010s when they overtook Russia. They’ve been number 3 since 1987.
> I'm trying really hard to buy European made products and to use European services where possible.
European companies are trying even harder to outsource to China.
In the past months I’ve seen an increase and it feels like almost everything is made in China, from books to Christmas trinkets to clothes and kitchen utensils, it’s a pain the ass to find locally produced goods.
This has a lot to do with the energy crisis triggered by decoupling from Russia, which was never properly put into context and evaluated from an economical perspective.
Chinese electronics manufacturing now is like Japan in the 60s/70s - I give it like a decade max before "Made in China" is widely understood to mean "High Quality" rather than the "Cheap Junk" connotation it still has today.
It's like that with tools if you know what to buy, and costs well below the US brands.
For my primary tools I'll have hundreds of hours of use I still buy the more expensive brands, but on tools I'll use much less commonly I'll pick up a Chinese unit in a heartbeat for 1/10th the price.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxYjsZr1PwM
If you read Calvin and Hobbes you can learn that Taiwan used to be known for making... shirts.
Selling the most cars will eventually translate into making the best cars, with the compounding experience and network effects.
At the time the US was making the most cars in the world...quality varied widely, to be generous.
You'd think so, but also, Tesla.
They don’t sell anywhere near the most cars, and their market share is shrinking. They also are a very VERY young manufacturer. This isn’t the right example to use imo.
Maybe Jeep? Very popular, dogwater quality. They take nearly half of the Consumer Reports “top 10 worst cars on the road” almost every year.
> Selling the most x will eventually translate into making the best x
It’s a theory for sure, but I don’t think that’s a common strategy for modern capitalism.
What about for socialism with Chinese charateristics?
The motivations from the people at the top are the same. Minimal effort and maximum profit.
No its the other way. In 4x4 They cannibalised the GM-Holden Colorado chassis production line in Thailand when GM exited that market, have refitted it with chinese made electronics and shell, and have complete quality parity. Actually a few people think the engine is better, and I am forced to agree. One of the colorado downstream models I tested had a better turning circle. They also tend to pack in all the "extras" other brands put on as standard. Consumers face a choice between cheaper and better vs tried and true brand loyalty. And brand loyalty has a limit tbh.
This was once said about Japanese cars. I don’t want a Chinese car now, but I probably will not too long from now.
I grew up hearing the same thing about the Japanese back in the 60s and 70s. That didn't last though.
People are buying £60000 BYD cars left and right. That's quite an expensive car.
The upper quartile are in the US and they're not allowed to buy Chinese cars, so you are right by default.
That notwithstanding, Xiaomi cars are nicer than Teslas. They're called "the Apple of China" for a reason.
They can't buy Chinese cars now, but I imagine the next Democratic president might want to knock Elon musk down a peg or two.
The next democrat still has ford and gm - with a lot of union labor - to worry about.
More people work for Target than the UAW
UAW pays better and is politically more powerful. They care more about UAW than Target employees
> UAW pays better
In some cases:
Target - in 2022 we enhanced our starting pay again, offering a range of $15 to $24 per hour
UAW wages at the big three automakers start at $18 and top out in the $30's. Meanwhile, UAW jobs at suppliers can start as low as $14/hr. You're probably not going to get 20-30 hours of overtime a week at Target, though.
Only 150,000 of the 380,000 UAW members are employed by the big three.
You also have union skilled trades jobs (electricians, millwrights, etc) that make more than production workers but Target pays their electricians etc more than the retail workers as well.
American foreign policy has been remarkably consistent over the last several decades.
Sometimes it’s the carrot and sometimes it’s the stick but the policies remain the same.
Nothing to do with quality. It's all image.
When Americans discover again how crappy their cars are compared to what's available elsewhere, like we did with Japan, there will be a reckoning once more. And again American cars will become the laughing stock they really are.
In the meantime, this incredibly short sighted protectionism will end just like the last round did. Further hollowing out our industrial base and permanently giving away large parts of a massive market.
And I'm sure all of the people involved in this insanity will want a bailout too.
>When Americans discover again how crappy their cars are compared to what's >available elsewhere, like we did with Japan
No, that's not what happened. Japanese manufacturers made cars in the US, to match US tastes. Japanese cars as sold in Japan, were not models Americans would buy.
>In the meantime, this incredibly short sighted protectionism will end just like >the last round did.
It'll end with...Chinese cars made in US factories w/ American workers? Chinese V8 pickup trucks failing to win market share against the US competition?
That's not the history that I recall. Let's look at Honda, just as an example.
Honda started selling cars in the US in 1970, with their quirky, tiny, Japan-made N600.
The Civic didn't happen until 1973, and it was also a Japanese-built car. Bigger than the N600 but still very small by American standards, it was the right car at the right time for the oil crisis the US was beginning to face. They sold a lot of Civics to Americans, despite the strong anti-Japanese sentiment around that time.
It wasn't until 1982 that Honda started building cars in the States, with the introduction of the Honda plant in Marysville, Ohio that began building Accords.
But even then: They still didn't build all of the USDM Accords in Marysville; many were still built in Japan and imported. It took additional years for the transition to fully occur.
---
That's 12 years from the time that they started selling cars in the US, to the time when they began to build their US-market cars in the US.
(If 12 years sounds like a short period of time, remember: We've only had the Tesla Model 3 for about 9 years now.)
Total Civic sales in 1979 were less than 10% of the # of execrable X-body Chevy Citations, Pontiac Phoenixes & Buick Skylarks that GM moved. Civics were still a niche.
US cars in the late 70s and early 80s sucked, you just had to be there to know how bad they were.
The Japanese made cars for the US that were different than local cars, but they were also different from what the US was making.
The quality angle was true 10 years ago, but that's no longer the case. Chinese cars are now superior in some areas and inferior in others (you can feel that some finishing is incomplete), but on average (and especially considering the price) they're better. The gap in the inferior areas is very small, and I wouldn't be surprised if they fully surpass European cars this year, given the new models they're releasing.
I think Porsche is really in trouble here.
I’m not anti-EV but the electric Macan and Cayenne look awful. They are under equipped technologically relative to their Chinese peers (heck basically anything).
Porsche sort of sold its soul for this tech-forward design but it doesn’t deliver any meaningful benefits, these cars don’t even have level 2+ highway cruise control. In the meantime I get a bunch of crap screens and lose all the glorious physical buttons and I don’t even have a fun engine rumble to make up for it?
So, the cars are ugly and uncool (I grant a matter of taste), aren’t selling in their target market (China) won’t sell meaningfully in their backup market (US) and they’re behind GM, Tesla and BYD in all regards on quality of life stuff.
Not a recipe for endurance.
Being a customer for years, I have to politely disagree.
Design is obviously a totally personal matter of taste, but as they have made many iconic shapes, apparently they're in the broad opinion not too bad at it.
The main difference is driving. I have driven many cars in my life, from very cheap to very expensive. For me personally, Porsche is in my opinion comparable to using a Mac - they're one of the few who "get it right":
- The entire workmanship is fantastic—nothing wobbles and nothing rattles. - Everything looks very harmonic, from interior to usability. Every button is where it has to be. Even the built-in entertainment system is highly usable (which in my opinion others like Mercedes never got right). - And, most importantly, despite being ICE or EV, the whole driving experience is just lightyears away from many competitors. Whether it's a 911 or a 718, they are just a joy to drive. Even a Cayenne just doesn't feel like a bulky SUV. There seems to be a lot of engineering going into all of that, weight distribution, chassis tuning, etc.
Apart from that - again, having owned many cars in my life - they're the most service-unintense cars ever. They just - work. You change the oil, sometimes the tires and that's it. I never had a single bigger problem with them.
Is there a lot of stuff which they didn't get? Agreed. Would it be nice to have better self-driving options? Without a doubt, but that's just a question of time.
But at least you have to give them that they, in strong contrast to many other German car manufacturers, didn't miss the trend and started to produce sexy EVs (hello Taycan) from very early on.
As long as I can, I will stay a loyal customer to them. If you have never driven a Porsche, get a test drive. I can only highly recommend it.
PS: And double points if you can do it on the German Autobahn. Try driving 240+ km/h with any other large-volume-production car, you'll be sweaty. With a Porsche, it just feels joyful.
>Try driving 240+ km/h with any other large-volume-production car, you'll be sweaty.
This is just very much not true, Audi, Mercedes,Toyota, BMW breeze through it, hell my friends audi S4 from 2004 regularly shoots 240+ over the autobahn, and we never break a sweat.
That is not my personal experience. I get very often those cars of those other major German brands at SIXT car rental, and of course this is my personal opinion:
- BMW is indeed very nice, I agree. I also once had a 6 series convertible which was - apart from the very low consumption (Diesel) - really nice to drive. Their cars are indeed a good alternative at a lower price point. - Audi is the utmost catastrophe. Apart from the abysmal navigation system, the car simply doesn't feel safe at higher speeds (had an A6, your mileage may vary with tuned S models). I didn't want to drive faster than 180km/h - Same goes for Mercedes (drove C, E and S Classes). The entertainment system is straight from the 90ies and the steering gets super wobbly at higher speeds. - Toyota - are you kidding me? Very reliable, good value, but nowhere near the driving capabilities of a BMW or Porsche.
Of course they are all nice cars and should do the job, especially in countries with speed limits - until 120 km/h that all doesn't matter. I'm just saying, if you really want (and can) go fast, most of those cars don't deliver in my opinion.
> Try driving 240+ km/h
This is an entertainingly German-centric answer.
My point is, just from my perspective (YMMV), the Porsche cars are pretty perfect. I have a hard time finding a car which behaves more precisely and reliably on the street, regardless of the speed, than a 911 or 718 - or a Taycan or Panamera.
That refers back to my original answer when the poster said Porsche are "in trouble" because they are "technologically underequipped" and "don't deliver meaningful benefits". There is a lot of stuff China and other carmakers haven't caught up to. Will they in the future? Maybe.
To take that German-centric thing out: Try going on a mountain road and have fun in the corners. I am sure, if you have multiple cars to do the same thing, the Porsche will rank pretty high.
In any case, of course, this is all a pretty niche market for people who love driving sports cars. In 99%, a Toyota can deliver exactly the same value for the base use case (going from A to B) for way less money.
After all, this is what the performance oriented cars by all German manufacturers are made for. Even a VW Golf GTI will happily cruise at 250 km/h.
Engine-wise, yeah, it has the power. But try it, that's not something you really want to do.
Having driven a Macan EV recently, it was nothing but annoying coming from years of Porsche driving. Too many unnecessary changes from what was there standard controls. Too much screen use.
That is interesting. Thanks for sharing I was interested in trying out a Porsche. Do the oil changes and other maintenance items cost significantly more than other makers?
Unfortunately yes, my Porsche Cayman's service is usually at least twice that of my wife's BMW 4 series.
If you prefer dealer maintenance, definitely. And tires cost more and are used up quickly (though BEVs may be similar here).
Not really, I usually don't carry them out at Porsche itself, only the regular inspections.
I wanted to replace my gas Macan with the new EV one. After a test drive I decided to just keep the gas one.
As an EV it is excellent. But Porsche is known for engaging driver's cars, and without the visceral sounds and vibrations of an engine it is bland and boring. The flaws in a gas engine's power curve give it character. Letting the driver manage that power curve is fun. A perfectly linear sub-3s 0-60 with fake electric sport sound played through the speakers does nothing for me.
I'd have probably bought it at $75K, but at $125K it needs to be more special. Especially considering the rate at which they depreciate. Its not a surprise to me that their EVs aren't selling as well as hoped. The Taycan sure is pretty though.
You're just religious about your own preferences.
Prosche specifically is facing huge losses, and with this strategy is doomed to die. There are already rumors of potential bancrupcy.
EVs grew 20% globally in 2025, with developing markets surging 40%+. When EVs under $100,000 can hit sub-2.5-second 0–60 mph (0–100 km/h), all this fake "benefit" talk about exhaust notes and luxury engine refinement sounds exactly like people cheering for Vertu golden buttons at the dawn of the iPhone era.
EVs are growing incredibly fast—despite the West's biggest EV supplier deciding to commit marketing harakiri by alienating half its customer base.
New battery tech has made EVs affordable, and that's why adoption will keep accelerating in China, the EU, and the rest of the world. There'll be some irrelevant fluctuations in the US, but those will eventually even out regardless—because the rest of the world and technological progress will move on with or without them.
we are on the edge of go-to-market of billions of dollars of investments into battery development. It will deliver both much cheaper where needed and more capable batteries on the market. Guess what it will do with legacy cars.
EVs as a whole are growing. Porsche however is struggling because of their "sports car" identity. Taycan sales dropped 22% year-over-year [0], and their 2025 EV sales only rose because the Macan EV is new and they discontinued the gas one in the EU. (Even then: Half of all Macan buyers worldwide went for the 11-year-old gas design over the EV.)
The market for EV sports cars is soft. The Rimac Nevera R broke 24 performance world records and yet nobody wants to buy it [1]. Even the CEO of Rimac has said people want an engine sound. Meanwhile Ferrari can launch an even more expensive gas car and it sells out before its officially announced [2].
I'm pro-EV and my partner owns one. They are practical appliances that are perfect for the 90% of people who just want to get from A to B. But the stats show that it's not just my personal preferences. The average sports car buyer wants an engine and exhaust.
0. https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2026/company/porsche-deliver...
1. https://www.carscoops.com/2024/05/slow-selling-nevera-is-a-s...
2. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ferrar...
My theory is that people buy mass-market Porsche cars because the 718/911 guys tell everyone how cool these cars are, but not everyone wants or needs a kidney-busting two-seater, so they compromise with a Panamera or Macan.
If there's no electric 718/911 version to hype them up, there’s not going to be any demand. There's also the issue that they're known for their small sporty cars, yet they're trying to sell 5m-long sedans and 'soccer mom' SUVs and failing at it.
The "soccer mom" SUVs are their best sellers and literally saved the company. I beg you to test-drive a Cayenne Turbo GT if you think they can't deliver a sports-car-like experience in a large SUV. Or a Macan GTS (which is only 7" longer than a 911 btw.)
The Taycan is pretty close to being an electric 911. There's a 718 EV coming out soon but Porsche realized there was not enough demand so now they're retrofitting a gas engine into the design.
The lack of demand for the 718 EV boils down to EVs being heavy, and therefore less chuckable than the gas one, and the lack of soul & engagement in cars without an engine. Solid state batteries will eventually solve the first problem. I'm not sure how we can solve the second one. Perhaps kids of today will grow up caring less about mechanical sounds.
> But Porsche is known for engaging driver's cars, and without the visceral sounds and vibrations of an engine it is bland and boring. The flaws in a gas engine's power curve give it character
Personally I experienced this the strongest in my friend's restored mk3 Ford Escort. I recall it as a feeling of not actually being inside a car due to the wind and engine noise.
Meanwhile the BMW 5 Series I rented a while ago didn't provide any of those feelings. Granted, it was a diesel automatic, but when I floored it, it just went and the engine noise was barely noticeable - at least compared to my poorly noise insulated daily Toyota.
The best thing about that car was that I could take my family on a 400km trip, the last 100km of which were mountain roads and not even break a sweat.
The thing is, driving on the road is not supposed to be fun. One should go to a racetrack (or simulator) to have fun.
Unless you live in a really remote and desertic place, there are just too much people on the road nowadays.
> driving on the road is not supposed to be fun.
Who says it's supposed to boring? It's supposed to be safe and you're supposed to drive with the consideration of others, but I don't think it's supposed to be either fun or boring, that's up to you.
I'm having a blast rolling down the highway in the middle of the night blasting music and singing, am I not allowed to do this because driving is supposed to not be fun?
I meant it shouldn't be the main purpose, that's it. Way too many people treat the roads as a playground disregarding the safety of others.
I am saying this as a pistonhead in remission.
Do you hate your job? Gun is where you find it and what you make of it. Everything you do should be fun or why do it?
If the process of driving itself is fun for you then great - have fun!
But what people usually mean by 'fun' driving is mostly just antisocial behaviour - too fast, loud brrm-brrm noises etc
Citation needed. Plenty of sports car drivers have fun every day without being antisocial at all.
You can have plenty of fun without putting other drivers in danger. I used to drive a NA Miata that took 9 seconds to get to 60 mph and it was the most fun car I've ever owned. But I'm a slow-car-fast person.
Most people can safely wring out their cars in 1st and 2nd on a highway on-ramp, or from a traffic light on an empty 55 mph country road. I own a fun weekend car that I take out at dawn on a Saturday to carve up a mountain pass - which is fun even at the speed limit. In a lightweight sports car with excellent brakes, I am safer than all the trucks I see on these roads.
okay but why would you get Porsche in the first place then?
Luxury sport cars are sold on 2 basis, a status symbol, and being driver's car. If you don't have the second and it's just another EV why bother ?
That is my point actually?
I am modtly getting my racing dose/fun from simulators these days but go-karts are cheap and fun in comparison of a road homologated luxury sportscar.
Because it’s fun just commuting to work in a car that is one of the best handling cars ever made?
I agree with this for the most part, though there are times and with specific cars that you can have a blast. I can have a lot of fun in an old M Coupe, or Miata.
I used to have a GT3...it was a dream car of mine and I finally got it. The sad reality was that in order to have fun with it on public roads I was either going to kill myself/someone else, or go to jail. The only way to really experience that car in a responsible way was to go to the track. Which I just flat out didn't have the time to do with young kids.
Things were very different 20-30 years ago. Roads were less crowded and people were much more respectful on the road. Now, especially where I live, it's a free for all Mad Max cosplay.
That you believe that is just sad. One doesn’t need to break the law to have fun in the right car.
I keep seeing "underequipped technologically relative to their Chinese peers" on HN. What kind of stuff is missing? This is not a loaded question, I only drive a couple times a month, and the vehicle I'm driving is an older Prius, so I probably lack imagination. EVs are supposed to be technologically pretty simple, most of an EV's value being in the battery packs. I've been thinking about upgrading, perhaps to a Nissan Sakura (which probably doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles either).
Now I kinda wish my Prius had a 3.5mm aux-in jack but I get by with an FM transmitter.
In terms of features I see on high end cars… (no clue if these are available in Chinese cars, just to help you get an idea of what exists)
1. Backup camera with lines that move as you turn the wheel
2. Camera setup that lets you see how close you are to curbs, other cars, etc. from a plethora of unexpected angles (you can get a top-down view of your car! Pretty cool.)
3. Automatic parking when parallel parking
4. “Reverse actions” feature, where you press a button after very carefully getting into a spot, and the car replays it in reverse to get you out of said spot
5. Lots of remote features tied to an app. The ability to look through cameras, auto-record videos when people get close, lock and unlock and view status of the car. Remote tracking via GPS in case it’s stolen.
6. Turn on your turn signal, your dash changes to a live video feed of that side of the car
7. Chairs with heating and cooling, massaging, and auto-inertia-damping features
8. Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay plus Android auto
9. Road-scanning cameras which adjust suspension live based on upcoming road conditions
10. Crash preparation features like Benz’s Pink Noise or auto-recording a minute of video to assist with crash investigations
There are probably may I’m forgetting.
> 5. Lots of remote features tied to an app. The ability to look through cameras, auto-record videos when people get close, lock and unlock and view status of the car. Remote tracking via GPS in case it’s stolen.
This is akin to spyware, since inevitably it is a cloud service using an onboard cellular modem.
I would personally rather have none of 1-10. What I do want in a high-end vehicle is things that are there for my benefit (heated steering wheel, heated/ventilated seats, spacious cupholders, etc.) not the manufacturer's.
I have 1 and 8 on my cheap RAV4 from 7 years ago. Heated seats too.
Not sure about 4 and 9, but the rest are available in US cars (not sure if any US car has all of them, though).
Some of these have been around for almost a decade. Not specific to EVs. I drive an ancient car (2003), but I've rented cars that have the rest.
I have 1,2,6 and 8 plus part of 5 and 7 (remote lock, unlock, status and GPS tracking, heated and cooled seats) on my 4-year old Hyundai Tucson. Not expensive and a very good value for money car. Made in Alabama.
huh. I don't want any of those things and i do have a porsche.
saw an xpeng playing music outside the car, not inside, for beach parties
and, this is not a joke, truly: the seat gave me a massage.
Lol, 1 to 4 is just called "knowing how to drive". These cameras aren't a serious value add unless you're driving a massive tank, err car.
Backup cameras have been legally required on new vehicles for like a decade. It is well understood to prevent accidents.
There are hundreds of millions of drivers with new ones entering and old ones exiting the roads all the time.
If you want to practically improve safety you have to make the vehicles safer, you can't just hope pointing fingers at bad drivers is gonna do anything.
The rear window in trucks and SUVs is above the head height of a small child. w/o a backup camera there is literally no way to see if a small child is behind you.
So many parents ran over their own child that backup cameras are now mandatory in the US.
Crazy to think that multiple countries chose to solve the danger of cars all turning into giant murder tanks was to add cameras rather than to classify the murder tanks as being too dangerous to drive.
That's why you check all around the car before setting off.
Unfortunately children playing in the yard have ample time to get behind the car between you checking it, entering the car, starting it, and reversing.
Yes, in principle one could take whatever other measures necessary to prevent such accidents. In reality, backup cameras save lives. Just like seatbelts, anti-lock brakes, crash safety standards, and other safety features that "Real Manly Drivers" protested against back in the day.
Children tend to move around.
Most people are just crap at parenting. Whenever I am moving a car backward to park or unpark my car, I ask everybody to stand at a specific place where I see them, regardless if they are adults or kids.
So yes everyone is right, yes a lots of people are just bad at taking basic safety measures but backup cameras are still a necessity because this will not change, it is even worse with people doomscrolling their smartphone while driving.
> Whenever I am moving a car backward to park or unpark my car, I ask everybody to stand at a specific place where I see them, regardless if they are adults or kids.
How does that help other people walking down a sidewalk?
or reversing in public where random kids could end up behind you I guess
Parking in a dense European city is much easier with the rear camera. The pure radar version is ok but the camera really allows you to use every inch.
> What kind of stuff is missing?
I'm in the market for buying a new car, either EV or hybrid. Currently have a Audi, been looking at various BYD models, particularly the new Touring one.
One important feature, that I didn't know I needed before I tried it, was in-seat AC, where the air from the AC hits the back and bottom, instead of just your arms and face. Living in a warm country, and spending most of the time in the car during the summer, this feature is something I really want now.
Heading to Audi and asking what the cheapest model available with that feature? Around 70K EUR. Doing the same but going to BYD: 35K EUR. And that's just considering that single feature, the same happens for almost everything. Want a HUD in the windshield? Audi adds 5K to the price, with BYD it's in the middle variants and up.
Basically, you get the same amount of "features" for half the price, and it's hard to just say "Well, I'm a fan of Audi so that's worth the markup". Still, there are many decisions that go into purchasing a car, not just the features, but I think that explains why you see that argument come up, because they do offer more features for cheaper than at least what the European car makers do.
I think this is one place where European automakers are going to have to adapt or die out. Even if they can get the motors, batteries, and charging systems to a competitive level, Chinese manufacturers include most """luxury""" features by default. European manufacturers go the other way, including the hardware but locking the entire thing behind microtransactions or "upgrades".
They're going to need to cover the losses they're compensating for with the ridiculous upgrade prices somehow or they're going to lose even more customers. The import tariffs raised to protect the European market from affordable Chinese cars aren't going to work forever.
This is mostly an issue with German cars. A lower-end Skoda comes standard with features that would cost half the car's price if optioned on a Mercedes.
Still, browsing the Skoda website, I see Skoda offering lane assist for 450 to 750 euros (one is a "plus" version for some reason), a "headlight assist" for 990 euros, and CarPlay/Android Auto support for 450 euros. 250 euros for heated seats, 350 for adding a phone charging port, 800 euros for satnav, 150 euros for a plastic tray between the seats. That is, of course, after selecting one of six "editions" of the same model that all come with different extras for a markup of several thousand.
The equivalent BYD comes with all of that included for free in the cheapest SKU. The biggest differentiator is that the heated seats are only available in BYD's most luxury version of the car, but the most luxury option is still 22% cheaper than the Skoda with equivalent options. BYD does charge more for a lick of paint, to be fair, so if you're looking for a specific colour you may pay a little more.
Perhaps BMW and Mercedes are worse at this, but the 150 euro plastic tray with cup holder says everything that needs to be said.
This is an odd one to take so long to "become normal" in luxury cars.
Lincoln started doing this about 20 years ago. You can buy Chevrolet pickup trucks with this feature. Of course my Polestar 2 (Swedish but made in China) has ventilation.
Now some might do true AC, while many just do ventilation, but either way it adds a lot of comfort if you're in a very warm cabin (or, say, have a huge panoramic sunroof.)
I think a few things.
1. They do not have robust self-driving capability. At this level of expense I expect hands-free major highway driving.
2. They’ve removed a lot of physical buttons that improve quality of life, the level of technology in the cabin is simply overwhelming.
3. They’ve done a great job with the driving experience of the EVs but they have poor range relative to the competition.
I have a 2022 Porsche 911. It has a lot of physical controls for things in the cabin like climate control, suspension settings, cruise control, dashboard view, and audio. The car also has an auto steer and cruise control option which will accelerate and brake for you while also keeping the car in the lane. It can go from a stop to whatever speed you set it to. It’s great for traffic on the highway. That’s not too shabby for a 2022 non EV car. Current model Mercedes have level 4 driving automation where you can take your eyes off the road. I don’t think Tesla even has this level of driving automation yet.
> That’s not too shabby for a 2022 non EV car
It very much is! (no offense) And EV vs ICE doesn't make a difference, the manufacturers put the same ADAS systems regardless of the powertrain.
BMW has had radar cruise control + lane keeping since 2016 I think? In 2019 they added full hands-free operation in highway traffic (up to 40 mph) as well as auto lane change when you tap the turn signal. In 2023 they have full hands free up to 85 mph on highways, plus auto lane change w/ navigation integration and auto-overtaking (car promps you to check the mirror, then changes lane completely touchless).
A frickin' 2020 Honda Civic has the same ADAS functionality as your '22 Porsche, even on the base trim ($21k). Porsche is way, way behind. And that's before you even get to all of the non-ADAS drivers assistance systems for parking, reversing, etc., which again the other Germans trash Porsche on.
Why would you care about ADAS on a drivers' car? Sure that might be useful on a Camry or another point A -> point B appliance, but I doubt Porsche buyers give any thought to those features.
Porsche buyers don't want self driving. The button thing is industry wide MBA group think that is being walked back. Their haptic buttons are actually not bad. Car manufacturers are shit at software, presumably because they don't feel the need to pay top euro for talent. Again an industry wide syndrome. Heck GM think it's smart to delete Apple carplay from their vehicles. The only electronics feature all buyers want.
I hate touch/sensor buttons and sliders. Give me back my physical buttons and spinning controls. Also, same for electrical speedometers/tachometers, etc
See this MKBHD video for an idea of features in Chinese EVs.
https://youtu.be/Mb6H7trzMfI
Watched it! I know it's from a US perspective, but where I live (Japan), $42000 is quite a lot! Definitely premium car territory. (E.g., Lexus RX base model)
IMO the car has a lot of bells and whistles that many drivers (probably!) don't really care about. But I guess car fans like this kind of stuff. The active noise cancelling feature might be nice, but wouldn't be surprised if we see regulation on that matter at some point. You kind of need to be alert of your surroundings, etc.
This is a car that is more expensive than a Tesla Model 3 in the Chinese market, with more or less the same features.
I don't want to make an exhaustive list, the summary is that standard features on many new cars are expensive options on Porsche's. And that's if they're available at all. Adaptive cruise control is one example.
Where I live, luxury cars are just status now. I don't think that's enough to keep gen Z and gen A interested.
Clearly porsche is missing the built in karaoke.
There's only one real Porsche, a gasoline-engined 911.
As much as I'm gung-ho about the world electrifying transport, I agree with you here. Those Porsche SUV's just look awful, whatever the drivetrain. If I'm gonna splurge on a Porsche, I'll want the real thing. And if I don't want a 911, well there are a lot of other brands making more sensible vehicles.
(Of course, if a lot of other people share my extremist views, that's pretty bad for Porsche the company. They likely can't survive just producing 911's. Oh well, I'm not here for corporate charity anyway.)
Nowadays the 718 might be more of a Porsche than the 911
It definitely is, especially for the price.
But the 911 range has a lot of bandwidth and there are models that go from minimalist driver’s car (911 T) to Touring/GT (most 911s) to race car for the street (GT2/GT3). But you definitely pay to step outside the GT box.
The new Cayenne seems to be a step in the right direction for VAG.
https://youtu.be/Yxc-U4_PwcU
The big challenge Porsche has is getting rid of its shrinking ICE business. Europe is a bit ahead here of the US. China even further. Local Chinese luxury brands run circles around Porsche in terms of luxury, performance, etc. That's why they are struggling there. Their cars just aren't good enough.
The way forward for Porsche would be to rip the band aid off and focus on just EVs. Leave the ICE market to hedge funds. Those are good at milking dying businesses that shrink year on year. They need to do some EV only models that are heavily optimized at being good at just that. Leave the SUV crossover BS. to all the traditional brands and make a proper sports car that goes fast and far. A little autobahn monster. That would restore their reputation for delivering unapologetically high performance cars that are slightly dangerous and exciting.
ICE is dead. That's grand daddy's car at this point. That's not something somebody born this century is going to lust after and put on their wall (in poster form). And Porsche needs something that young people would want if they had the money. Their current lineup is a bit too conservative and boring. Sensible cars if they'd be half the price. But they are just too expensive and unremarkable to sell well. You can do better for the same money.
What is crazy about some of these old car brands is that they have some IP that would sell like hotcakes. Aircooled 911s went from 30k cars to 130k cars on the used market over the last 10 years. If they managed to work around crash regulations, maybe with some stroking of Donalds ego right now, they'd be making money hand over fist off those old designs.
I can't exactly remember the situation but I'm pretty sure there was a car company that did something like this in recent history, restarting a production run on a classic model and selling it out.
No. These cars are desirable and valuables as collectibles for the very reason they are a dying breed and we can't won't make them as they used to.
SuperfastMatt is buying a Cayman! I think they will be fine...
https://youtu.be/rkXqKfYRJD0
Porsche is loosing billions and people start talking they are caput(bancrupt) :)
And Apple is going to fail.
EV cars are mostly just appliances now. Not sure how the prestigious Porsche badge (or any other really) can stand out into the future.
According to (enthusiast) car magazines, Porsche BEVs are still better at being Porsches than most of the competition.
Not sure if you have been into an appliance shop lately, but for any given appliance there are options in every price bracket.
Making things that...track better than an appliance.
There's probably still plenty of value in the name, who knows if the audience who are impressed if you say "I've got a Porsche" vs "I got a Zeekr/BYD/Xiaomi" is growing or shrinking, if it shrinks fast enough, then Porsche is in trouble.
It's like bragging about having a Hermes bag vs a Temu brand bag. Yeah it's all irrational, but if the world was a rational place we'd not have a man-child threatening wars and invasion because he didn't get the peace prize he wanted...
Trends and perceptions can change fast in China's market.
(NYTimes - Why Porsche Is No Longer a ‘Premium’ Sports Car in China)[https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/17/business/porsche-china-ge...]
The US/EU/JP manufacturers are half-pregnant, they have engine and other mechanical production plants that will become stranded assets as BEVs don't need engines, gearboxes or the other hydraulic/cooling etc infrastructure that an ICE vehicle needs.
Electric motors are essentially maintenance free over the life of a BEV, same for the batteries. The maintenance is for brake pads/rotors, but regen braking also avoids that.
There is the passenger heat pumps for heat/cooling, and the lighting, but LED lighting also requires minimal maintenance.
That cuts out a large chunk of the automotive industry in general.
US/EU/JP manufacturers are having to handle a major market disruption, independent of whether or not CN is leaping over them.
> Electric motors are essentially maintenance free
They require maintenance, although less than an ICE, but drive train repairs are not as uncommon as you might think. Manufacturers are always going to pinch pennies.
> That cuts out a large chunk of the automotive industry in general.
Hardly. You've removed the engine, fuel and exhaust system. You still need literally everything else. Windows and motors, doors and locks, wheels and hubs, seats and accessories, gauge clusters and radios, environmental controls, differentials and oil changes, the list goes on and on.
You deliver them the same way, you sell them the same way, you license them into the system the same way.
> US/EU/JP manufacturers are having to handle a major market disruption
That was called COVID. They all handled it badly save Toyota. The oil companies have far more to worry about.
This is not a market disruption, this is a supply chain change that is not going to be delayed by artificial tariffs or other protectionist attempts.
Post COVID was getting back to what was before, this is the equivalent of the introduction of Ford mass production techniques on the previous industry of coach building.
ICE engine parts are a major ongoing expense but also profit centre for dealers and an entire industry on their own.
So there's entire supply chains that will be disrupted.
How many engine plants are going to be needed going forward?
Australia went through this wrench back in 2014 when our local car industry collapsed after the government withdrew a measly amount in annual subsidies.
Fortunately it was a 3 year process that played out that allowed adjustments.
That had a major knock on effect of the loss of roughly 50K manufacturing jobs and industries had to pivot.
The US/EU/JP manufacturers are having trouble pivoting, the US because its car industry is entirely about trucks/SUVs, EU because its premium for manufacturing is rapidly eroding, and JP because they seem to be having trouble actually manufacturing EVs.
CN and KR is where the leaders are now.
You wish. These EV get charged $15k more compared what they used to be with their gas models with crap touch screens, stupid ass voice controls: things that when broken are hard to repair and costly, the battery, the range. Keep dreaming
My last MOT in a petrol engine required suspension, tyres and lights. Electric wouldn’t change any of that
Lights with LEDs are likely to not need maintenance.
Suspension and tyres might actually need more frequent maintenance because of the extra weight of an EV.
But how often does suspension require actual maintenance?
When your LED brake light goes out, you have to purchase an entire assembly as the LED's are part of the PCB. There are no "bulbs" for a few dollars. And with the matrix LED's a few may go out, now your brake light "sort of" works, so it's even harder to justify replacing.
>Electric motors are essentially maintenance free over the life of a BEV, same for the batteries.
You had me until "same for the batteries." The batteries do pretty well, but they are quite the gamble.
Evidence so far says they are not a gamble at all, and common (required?) eight year warranties on 80% life remaining are on all BEVs, plus record show that BEVs tend to to retain that 80% range at ten years. The gamble might be in whether the batteries have manufacturing defects, but warranty and recalls cover that, and as Samsung showed, can happen to even smaller, cheaper items.
Porsche was on the brink of bankruptcy. Then they started making SUVs. It turned out the SUVs are the ones that are bringing in all the cash to the company.
The audience of Porsche SUVs (cayenne, macan) care about signaling wealth via the badge. But they mostly want an everyday car for their commute, groceries / kid pickup.
No wonder the EVs options sell better. They have the badge, and are better at everyday tasks.
The 911 will stay gas powered (maybe e fuel at some point if mining of oil stops), because the target audience cares equally for signaling as well as the driving experience.
The EV options sell better in Europe because they completely stopped selling the ICE Macan due to EU cybersecurity regs. In North America (the only market that hasn't seen a decrease in sales), they did a 180 and promised to keep selling the ICE SUVs into 2030 because EV adoption has massively disappointed. The new K1 is now going to be sold with a combustion engine first instead of as a fully-electric.
Doesn't it include PHEV cars? I don't spot EV Porsches too often in one of central European capitals.
Hmm this comment gives the impression that electric Porsches are bad to drive and are only bought for the badge and convenience, like the SUV:s. I haven't driven a Taycan so can't say but I would assume it's not so. (And also it doesn't look like a convenient car.)
The Taycan is the ev version of the Panamera. They are in the grand tourismo category. Aka 4 doors, plenty of storage space, great for traveling.
Yes they are very functional compared to a 911. No they don’t drive like a 911.
Do they drive better than an Audi A7, Mercedes GT, BMW 8 series? That is debatable.
I own a Panamera and my husband owns an M850i. The Panamera drives like a Porsche, while the M850i is comparatively a boat. I'm not a big fan of how much suspension travel the M850i has; the Panamera has exactly the right amount to feel sporty but still comfortable, just like our 718 has.
Car enthusiasts caring about the driving experience doesn't just mean drivability. Engine sound is a huge part of it. All the classic Porsche 911 have flat-6 engines which make a distinctive sound that is totally part of the brand.
FTR I don't care about this myself, I'm happy with my EV. But the importance of this aspect is easily missed by people not part of the target demographic.
It feels like engine sound has become more important to these people since EV's entered the market. I'm sure it was there before but not to the same extent.
The huge uproar about the 718 having a flat four turbo engine was mostly about the sound. (I don’t have a problem with it.) I think it has always been there.
It became more of a selling point as regulation came for it. OPF, stricter modification control, etc. Prior it didn't matter as much since it was always decent and you could do whatever you want to it. Now, a pops and bangs tune with a straight pipe will get your car impounded in most countries the first time a cop sees/hears you.
Also Porsche SUVs regularly rank at the top of luxury SUV reviews. I've never driven one but the consensus is that they're great - it's not just badge engineering.
The Cayenne has no right to be as fast as it is. The stupid thing will powerslide out of corners at 120 kmh and fly at hot hatch speeds through twisty cobblestone roads. The brakes were also wonderful and surprisingly cheap for the size. Didn't have air suspension so it rode like a fast car though.
The key part is electrified and not pure electric.
On this note: It was recently reported that Electrified vehicles in general outsold conventional ICE powered vehicles in Australia, claiming it has reached a 'tipping point' with consumers:
https://www.drive.com.au/news/electrified-vehicles-have-offi...
Consumers don't realize they are getting the worst of both worlds with added weight, complexity, repairs, inefficiency, and costs along with potential reliability (ex-Toyota) Not to mention studies that show PHEV owners frequently don't plug in.
Well those owners are idiots. That says nothing about the car. You can't exclude Toyota when you make the claim that hybrids are unreliable and inefficient either. They have proven that they can be reliable and efficient.
Hybrids aren't running around doing 30 miles a day with a 300 mile battery like most EVs. Talk about inefficient!
How many miles of long trips? A quick search gives me half of them are long distance (50+ miles).
Since the short trips can all be done very efficiently on battery (recovering all the braking, too), I guess the weight isn't much of an issue for commuting if you can have the rest -half of the total driven miles- on EV with a full battery vehicle.
I wish I could find numbers on eCO2/miles for the short vs long trips.
The problem is the limited charging infrastructure. Hybrid owners don't need to plug in for the vehicle to function so they yield available chargers to actual EVs. To get past this you would need ubiquitous charging infra.
PHEV owners only need to charge at home (and if they can’t, don’t need a PHEV) and use electric power for local commuting.
The future of BEVs (and the most practical today) is also charging at home, and available chargers can grow slowly with BEVs used for road trips. Tesla is pretty close to there already. So, chargers don’t need to ubiquitous, just a bit more available on less common road trip routes.
My main goal with buying an EV is to give the middle finger to the oil industry as they have meddled with the world too much.
They screwed public transit and entire nations just for profits. I love my Subbie and I'll keep that until it breaks apart and replace it with an EV. Maybe today there's many downsides to an EV, but I hope it evens up and maybe becomes even better to get one.
My Outlander rarely needed repairs and I always plugged it in. The car even complained about me needing to use the gazoline in the tank because it risked getting old in the tank and needed to be replaced. That was a great car. My new EV, a Subaru Solterra is great too though.
> Subaru Solterra
Looking at Doug Demuro reviews it has one the worst weekend score and one the best daily score. Amazing.
Nah, PHEVs are the perfect compromise for lots of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to go all electric. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Indeed. I cannot charge my car at home so I drive a PHEV. I use public chargers when one is available on my street. If not, no problem. I’d say about 80% of my daily driving is done on the battery, which is a lot better than 0!
That’s simple not true. Studies have shown that historically hybrid vehicles have fewer issues than any other type, possibly because reducing the ICE use increases reliability overall more than adding the minimal EV complexity.
>Hybrids, which combine a gas engine, electric motor, and battery, have 15 percent fewer problems on average than gas-only cars. EVs and PHEVs have about 80 percent more problems on average than gas-only cars.
>“Many of the problems with EVs and plug-in hybrids are because they are newer designs compared to gas technology, so some kinks still continue to be worked out,” says Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. “By comparison, hybrids have been around for nearly three decades, and the technology is tried and true.”
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...
I wonder if fake hybrids [1] were counted as well.
[1] https://www.carscoops.com/2025/10/toyota-accuses-rivals-of-s...
About 2/3 of these are BEVs and the other 1/3 are PHEVs:
> In 2025, 34.4 per cent of Porsche cars delivered worldwide were electrified (+7.4 percentage points), with 22.2 per cent being fully electric and 12.1 per cent being plug-in hybrids.
I never understood the big push for full EVs over hybrid. Roughly speaking, a hybrid gets double the MPG of an ICE car, and a BEV gets double the MPGe of a hybrid. But BEVs require you to add a plug to your garage to get a rapid refuel, when your whole neighborhood gets them it strains the grid, you are range limited, etc...
My hunch is there are some laws or regs somewhere that kept hybrids from really taking off (or rather, they were taking off.. then suddenly were suppressed). Which is why I don't interpret headlines like these to mean "consumers have crossed the tipping point" - in many cases it is incentive-driven, not pure consumer demand.
The EU is committed to the full EV route and that is not changing. But it's not taking hold in the US, and over the next few years the big thing we will see being sold is actually EREVs, which are BEVs with a gas generator attached to charge the battery (yes, really).
Source: in the industry
> I never understood the big push for full EVs over hybrid.
Being able to shed the ICE bits from the car's powertrain eliminates multiple entire classes of maintenance burden. With hybrid and EREV you get the problems of both types of powerplant and drivetrain, and even though ICE has evolved to be fairly reliable, it's still a very complicated assembly and basic wear-and-tear still is still a challenge.
There will probably be parts of the country where hybrid or EREV make sense for some period of time due to the distances involved and the incredible energy density of gasoline, but a lot of the driving that happens day to day can already be handled with pure EVs as long as you have a 120V plug accessible to your car.
> Being able to shed the ICE bits from the car's powertrain eliminates multiple entire classes of maintenance burden.
I don't know but is this a uniquely US (and/or a few other such countries) thing, because of the high volume of daily driving?
Here in India we send our (ICE) car in for a service somthing like once or twice a year? And that too is mostly because "the engine sounds a bit off", not "the car isn't starting".
Less maintenance sure is nice, but I don't think it's consciously a "problem" for many.
Same here in the US - 10,000 miles per year, so an $75 oil change every six months. Change the spark plugs myself every 4 years for $20. No big deal.
All the other maintenance I do would be the same with an electric vehicle (suspension fixes, flat tires / new tires, brake pads / brake fluid, etc).
ICE car maintenance isn’t a problem for me either. That alone isn’t going to make me buy a new $40k EV with no physical buttons because it’s one giant unusable touch screen that is a safety hazard to me and anyone else around me.
(Looking at you Polestar - your entire interior UX is garbage.)
Hybrids are a better option for me since I don’t have a charger at my house nor do I want one, but they’re also very expensive.
ICE engines aren't a problem right up until they are.
I had one car where the timing belt broke unexpectedly and because it was an 'interference' engine, that led to damage to the engine head and a piston rod (and could easily have been bad enough to have been irreparable had the timing been a bit different).
Second car, had a loud noise from the engine that resolved on its own while driving up a hill. That car model later has a recall for the engine catching fire. Did I just get lucky? Who knows.
My first car (a minivan), the rear exhaust plate fastener broke while driving and make a noise that could be heard from a mile away... right as I was driving past a bunch of cops on heightened DUI enforcement night. Now I wasn't drinking but I still didn't appreciate my car not only breaking ostentatiously, but buying me a ticket in the process.
A fourth car, also a minivan, had an issue with its automatic transmission where it would struggle to upshift going from first to second gear sometimes. At least once every couple weeks, sometimes more frequent. It was never resolved by the manufacturer or any mechanic we could take it to before we sold it.
Now I did make sure to mention that ICE has evolved a high degree of reliability for a reason, but the fact is that even when the odds of things going bad is low, when there are a multitude of different independent ways for things to go bad (as there are with an ICE engine and drivetrain), the birthday paradox makes it inevitable that something will eventually be an issue.
And even though I had an issue like that with every ICE car I have ever owned, even those I didn't have to take to the mechanic for an issue outside of routine maintenance twice a year. They were more reliable than that, but that wasn't enough to keep them from falling prey to various issues.
Don't most people already have a plug in their garage? All mine certainly have. There's no need to get full EVSE for most people, a 2.4kW outlet as found almost everywhere outside North America will easily handle daily driving needs for anyone who's not in a travelling job.
Also if everyone in your neighbourhood turning on a space heater strains the grid you have bigger problems.
Utilities have plenty of ways to solve that. We already have electric water heaters on demand controlled circuits and electricity billing that incentivises off-peak use.
And as for range? 400km is plenty for all but one trip a year, if that's an issue for your use perhaps EVs are not for you.
44 million US households have no garage, including ~2/3 of renters
Sounds like a market opportunity for kerb-side, low speed, charging points.
Not to mention parking garages for daytime parking at work.
Not to mention mall parking lots.
The garage is an obvious starting point, because your car spends a lot of time there, but there are lots of opportunities elsewhere.
Once upon a time 44 million households didn't have electricity. Things change.
I have no garage and work from home. So no workplace to charge.
So now you’ve added another thing I have to worry about - finding charging somewhere along my 10 minute errand route?
EVs are a bad solution to a problem I don’t have. Hybrids are much better.
For the small amount of driving I do, driving my commuter ICE car with a tiny, 35-mpg 4 cylinder engine is fine… why are the EV cultists so convinced their way is the only way and the rest of us are living in prehistoric times?
Plus, your EV is heavier than my ICE, so your tires shed rubber particulate more quickly than my tires due to the weight, which is also an environmental pollutant (that is toxic enough to kill wildlife, btw)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd6951
>> I have no garage and work from home. So no workplace to charge. So now you’ve added another thing I have to worry about - finding charging somewhere along my 10 minute errand route?
Your car lives somewhere when you're not doing errands. Expect a charging point there as demand for that grows.
Not to mention charging points at the mall, shops, restaurants and so on.
Clearly it will be a long time before EV replaces ICE completely. There was lots of horse infrastructure which changed when cars appeared.
But the pendulum is swinging and each motion there opens up new opportunities.
Also each motion has an impact on existing infrastructure. Expect gas stations to be less common, ditto for mechanics and so on.
>EV's produce 38% less tire & brake dust than ICE vehicles.
>non-exhaust emissions on an ICE vehicle are roughly 1/3 brake dust, 1/3 tire dust and 1/3 road dust. EV's have almost no impact on road dust, 83% lest brake dust and 20% more tire dust.
https://electrek.co/2025/05/27/another-way-electric-cars-cle...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46219820
> though much of this is attributable to a vehicle mix that is more focused on larger vehicles, as it seems like every EV manufacturer is making huge SUVs and few are making small cars
My point exactly. Your new EV has more tire dust (and probably more brake dust) than my old, smaller ICE.
Hence the urgent need for charging infrastructure: Incentives to install charges in homes and rental unit garages and at curbsides.
Isn't it a lot easier just to sell people hybrids instead?
In the short run. When I replaced my minivan with a PHEV my gas bill went down $200/month, my electric bill went up $30. Chargers where people park is a long term investment in lower costs for everyone. Hopefully chargers are everywhere in the future so we don't need the ICE at all. (I just bought a EV, I've barely had it a week and already have run out of battery - I was just able to reach a charger, but it required changing my route since there were none along the route I wanted)
No. It's really easy to install charging points on office parking space and supermarket. You don't need to plug at home when half of the day the car is parked at places with chargers.
Comments like this are bubble coded. Plenty of people don't park at an office, don't park at a supermarket, certainly not for half the day
Not half a day, but BEVs are impractical today if you don’t have home charging, but throw in restaurants, movie theaters, doctor’s and dentist’s offices, and L2 charging starts to become a practical alternative for many.
Yeah but don't we need to stop burning fossil fuels?
No? I haven't seen a "peak oil" article or prediction in at least ten years. It would be GREAT to reduce our dependence, to make them cleaner, to make them more efficient, and to increase the use of renewables. But who is saying we have to "stop" oil and gas?
I don't think reaching peak oil is the worry. The worry is climate change.
> But who is saying we have to "stop" oil and gas?
People who are concerned about climate change? Should we not be?
Global warming.
Absolutely. And Toyota agrees with you.
The people in this thread have lost their minds in a cult of EV.
I don’t know why EV has to be the answer to every question. There are plenty of economical hybrid options.
> There's no need to get full EVSE for most people,
It's a lot more comfortable though. It's been a great addition to the home to get an EVSE, even a small single-phase one.
> Don't most people already have a plug in their garage?
Good point, most people without garages should continue buying hybrid or ICE, because EVs aren't for them yet.
I dont have a garage, but there are at least 15+ curb side chargers in 250 meters walking distance of my house. No problem charging my Tesla.
How is the pricing? IME public charges are 2-3x as expensive as charging at home.
Company car, i don't see the bill, but i think it's about e0.46 - e0.50/kWh.
What about charging at work?
Yes, there are chargers there as well, i guess around 40 in the parking garage.
Nice
When will EVs be for them?
I was being a bit facetious, but I guess when either they're fortunate to live extremely close to a charger, or they have one in building, but then it seems like they'd be fighting for parking and charging space, which doesn't seem to me to compete favorably in terms of practicality. Or the housing market finally crashes and there's a viable path out of renting for those that want to do so.
When L2 errand charging becomes enough that they can keep up with daily travel by plugging in where they go and park for a while - restaurants, movie theaters, retail stores, doctor and dentist offices, etc.
I would like to see alternative charging approaches, as well, like inductive charging roads / parking spaces... this seems kind of cool: https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/travel/mobility/initiatives/wi...
That way I wouldn't need to stress over finding a charging place so often.
Yes it's so easy - Just tell the butler to put it on charge when you arrive home.
>Also if everyone in your neighbourhood turning on a space heater strains the grid you have bigger problems.
Welcome to Texas.
And with Texas a 200 mile+ driving day is just more common than people from smaller places experience.
People can't possibly be driving 200 miles a day, that can't be real.
Sure it can :).
Probably not 7 days a week, but a couple days a week, sure.
And of course not everyone. Maybe 10%?
Not that it matters. What do I care about the needs of some Texans? (I mean that non perjorativly). I mean just because ranchers still need horses doesn't mean the rest of us have to use them.
The world will go EV, even much of the US will go EV, regardless of what some folks need.
If you have to drive 200 miles a day to go to/come back from work its a policy failure and we should care about it.
Almost nobody is driving 200 miles to get to work. Almost everybody will move if their commute is more than half an hour - this is through out history and includes hunter gathers deciding to move the tribe, peasants walking to their field... There are a few people driving that far in the US, but either they are planning to move soon, or they don't expect the job to last long.
There are a lot of people driving more than 200 miles a day for work though. Many of them are in cars because their unique skills are why they need to be there (as opposed to delivery drivers who are bringing cargo).
There are also people who drive a long distance once a week. I know of a rural hospital that pays a lot of doctors to drive in on Thursday so locals don't have to go to the city. (they keep an ER, but the rest of the hospital is empty other than a few nurses the rest of the week)
So what is the limit of days you drive 200+ miles per year that make a full EV make sense?
In an average year I'll have 40+ days where I drive that much. Not for work, just for doing random things.
>a policy failure and we should care about it.
We should, but we won't because Oil/Gas/ICE cars spend an epic fuckload telling you that anything not related driving more is communism.
Every time an EV driver charges their car at home, a gas station loses a customer.
Eventually this compounds and gas stations start closing.
That accelerates the switch to EVs because gas becomes hard to find. Which accelerates gas station closures, and so on.
The point at which it becomes impractical to drive a gas-fuelled car is approaching. It will hit different countries at different times, but it's there. 10 years, 30 years, whatever, but it's coming.
Long before that point, a hybrid is just an EV that has to carry around a chunk of useless engine that is hard to fuel.
How has this played out in Norway? (If you know) They're at 90% EV market share, right?
Norway cars on the road, December 2025:
We don't know the business model in Norway.
In US, gas stations barely make any profit on gas, its all from the convenience store, beer, water, lottery tickets, trinkets, souvenirs, etc. Costco, HEB, Walmart, etc also have gas and can run it as a loss leader for customers to compete with Amazon. As the number of gas consumers go down, gas stations everywhere will start shutting down, except the Costco/HEB/Walmart, because gas stations can't compete with those prices.
The U.S. saw over 210,000 stations in the early 1990s, dropping to around 145,000 by 2022, and potentially as low as 115,000 by 2020, according to various data points. Some estimates suggest a potential 50% reduction in traditional stations by 2050 in some regions: https://boosterusa.com/from-the-experts/the-inevitable-death...
Last time I read the financial reports for a gas station it was about 1/3 each, gas, tobacco, and food. Tobacco has gone way down since then, but the other two are still important. Gas is low margin, but high volume and so they make a lot of profit on it.
Might be 90% of current sales. Still a lot of ICE cars on the road.
Yes, that's what I meant. Was just curious how the market for gas has changed (or not) in NO given that.
In the US the average car is 12 years old. I don't know Norway, but I expect similar. Which is to say I don't expect this to have made any difference in the number of gas stations yet. Gas station owners are watching numbers, but and are likely to open less in the future (not zero, some new development/locations will be important, but some locations that previously would have got one will not longer be worth the investment. Or maybe they put in the station without gas pumps - people still need those snacks (again I don't know the market in Norway, in the US that is how it would be).
Gas stations are also trying to figure out how charging fits in. While people are expected to charge at home, there will still me some demand for on the road charging. This is a place that hasn't worked out yet (I personally expect people will go for a nicer meal and sit down for an hour charge - but this might be my bias)
Quick AI search suggests average car age in Norway to be 11.1-11.3 years, so indeed quite similar.
As for what would happen with gas station when EV's dominate, what already seems to be in progress here (not due to EV's, but other factors in the market) is that the "traditional" gas station serving stale coffee, snacks, and windshield wiper fluid are on the way out, replaced by either unmanned cold stations with just the pumps, or then by major roads large full-featured mini shopping malls with groceries, half-decent restaurant (sometimes several), and other shops. I think in a future EV world the cold stations would disappear but the higher end service centers would do fine.
Good question, I have no idea.
> BEVs require you to add a plug to your garage to get a rapid refuel
You hardly ever need a rapid refuel in your garage though. That's where your car spends most of its hours.
And most of the world has 220/240v mains supply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country. Regular wall outlets can charge a car fast enough outside North America.
Even in the US a regular wall outlet is enough - most people don’t commute far enough every day to need more than L1 charging overnight to keep up.
The main issue will always be price. Whether that's purchase price, resale, or maintenance. Even the budget brand cars from South Korea and Ford can figure out the basics of interior/exterior design where customers are happy. That mostly just leaves the price and it's only gone up.
Car prices have increased well above the rate of inflation over the last decade and even used cars are more expensive than ever. Average new car price is $50k, mostly because EVs are so expensive https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a69047202/average-new-car-...
>Car prices have increased well above the rate of inflation over the last decade
This is a fair concern, but also, looking at the rise of average car prices is like looking at the rise of average iPhone prices. That is to say, cars (and iPhones) are providing increasingly premium offerings that didn’t exist decades ago. If you look at the entry levels of both these things, you find that the bottom-line price broadly keeps pace with inflation. And for cars, that’s with the addition of now-standard safety and convenience features. When you match cars feature-for-feature (an unrealistic comparison, as there aren’t really bare-bones cars on offer anymore), you’d see that cars are increasing in price much more slowly than inflation, and in other words, are effectively cheaper. Ultimately, whether car prices are rising or falling depends a lot on how you calculate things.
I’ll also add that EV pricing doesn’t have to mean insane car costs. The US market has the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf each selling for about $30k new and can be readily bought for half that with used inventory.
> The main issue will always be price.
You're right. There isn't a single legacy auto manufacturer in the US (Ford, GM, Stellantis) that can profitably sell an EV. Yet they make them anyway, and sell them for huge losses ($billions per year) because they have to meet mandates.
For foreign (read Chinese) cars a big piece of the price charged to US customers is the tarrifs (taxes) which US customers pay.
Elsewhere in the world EV prices are steadily coming down. They're not as low as ICE yet, and maybe never will be, but a nice entry level ICE car here is circa $15k, and a nice EV entry level is circa 25k.
Factor in fuel and maintenance costs and the real price is getting very close....
A bit sad that you're in the industry and you don't understand why pure EVs are better than hybrids.
Full EVs: Less moving parts = less maintenance required = less issues to worry about (think no oil changes, no timing belt changes, no spark plug replacements, no belt/filter changes, no exhaust system checks, etc).
Also zero emissions = better air quality around you.
Bonus: it's like waking up with a full take of gas every morning
I've owned my full EV for almost 10 years now and had 0 maintenance done whatsoever (apart from tire rotation and window wiper fluid replacement). I would never go back to an ICE vehicle.
> Full EVs: Less moving parts = less maintenance required = less issues to worry about (think no oil changes, no timing belt changes, no spark plug replacements, no belt/filter changes, no exhaust system checks, etc).
The above is a tiny part of the costs of an ICE. Sure you have to do it, but either it isn't common, or it is cheap. ICEs have gotten very reliable over the decades.
Meanwhile most of the parts of a car a common between an ICE and EV. You have tires either way, which need to be rotated (do you?) Shocks/struts, rust, tie rods, AC compressors, just to pick a few random ones.
I also can't help but think but the decade over decade improvement in EV goodies is going to be steep: more sensors, more ability if not to fully self-drive then to take over this aspect of driving (like backing up), etc.
>> I never understood the big push for full EVs over hybrid
Weight, space and reliability.
Dragging that generator (and fuel) around costs weight and space, reducing range. Exhaust, fuel tank, radiator- all the support systems the ICE motor needs. Which leaves less space for batteries, which reduces range.
Plus, the maintenance burden is still there. All those ICE parts still need all the maintainence etc that full ICE needs. One of the joys of EV is that maintainence is sooo much simpler.
So yes, hybrid is much more efficient than gas only, but a poor cousin of full EV.
By contrast full EV has range limitations. And yes distances in Europe are much shorter than the US. No that's less of an issue there. But even there we're seeing range go up, and charging come down.
Don’t full battery packs weigh more than an ICE system? Plus, weight is a minimal factor in efficiency anyway.
Today, a PHEV is the best of all world’s, but full parity for BEVs (in the US) is almost here. Reliable trip charging (NACS, SuperCharger network) and available destination charging will be enough pretty soon.
The weight I'm referring to is the weight of both systems, which is typically heavier than 1 system.
In terms of ev weight overall, it's typically close to ice weight. (Obviously a lot of differences between vehicle class and range).
An ev has motor, batteries, plus controllers. Ice has engine, gearbox, fuel tank, radiator [1], exhaust.
[1] Evs also have a radiator, but its a much smaller system running at lower Temps, with less water.
I'm converting an old vehicle now to EV and the overall weight difference is not significant.
I rented a hybrid recently while my car was in for a service. Picked it up, drove home (25 mins on motorway) then returned it the next day. It spent all of that time burning petrol while popping up notices about all the reasons it couldn’t use electricity right now (too cold, too fast etc).
All ICE cars should have been hybrid from 5-10 years ago but it is a stepping stone we should already be stepping off.
Its not an unsurmountable problem as Americans think. Just works like how you plug in your phone. Most of the world has electricity at home.
My uncle works in the industry and was getting a new car recently. His two options were all electric or all ICE, because from his experience, EHEVs have the problems of both ICE and BEV vehicles.
His experience is biased because studies have shown that hybrids have fewer issues than pure ICE or pure BEV.
This comes off like "I never understood why not everyone still uses landlines".
Well, a hybrid doesn't solve the problem. We don't need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need to zero them out. You can't do that if you sometimes burn gas.
You know car emissions are like 15% total greenhouse gas emissions in the US right? And half that worldwide.
This is just the most visible source for a bunch of people who have made their conclusion unencumbered by the data.
The emissions from powering and heating your house are several times what your car emissions are.
So go solve that one and leave my Corolla alone.
That is some whataboutism.
You do realize that net zero homes are buildable? Even in surprisingly challenging climates.
There are so many ways to make better use of the energy we have available than to waste a bunch of it to pollute the air.
Zero greenhouse emissions isn't a remotely achievable goal.
I hope you have never run a technology project this way by starting with a goal that simply can't be accomplished; you would have set it up to fail, demoralized your team, and chased the wrong priorities.
The goal is net zero, meaning, emissions added = emissions removed. There must be an allowance for some emissions. Industrial human life cannot continue without some amount of greenhouse emissions.
For that goal, I am way better off driving less than buying a new EV - it releases greenhouse gases to produce the plastic in your Tesla and the battery in your Nissan Leaf.
I walk to the supermarket. I work from home. I don't eat red meat. I'm careful with my home electricity consumption. For the third time in this thread: my old 4 cylinder Corolla is not the thing standing between us and existential doom. Focus on more important things.
I don't understand the myopic focus on car emissions: is it because Elon talks about it? Is it because it's the most easily seen for you?
Net zero is what I'm talking about.
Your Corolla is worse than a BEV because it puts way more GHG in the atmosphere, making net zero harder. Your opinion that the Corolla emits less GHG than a BEV is not borne out by the data. Most of the pollution of your car is from using it, not building it. EVs flip that and only are only slightly worse to produce. And we have to replace pretty much every road vehicle with a zero emission one, and sooner is better.
Buying the new EV, selling your old car, and helping push ICE vehicles off the roads is better than not replacing it in any reasonable environmental accounting.
Also, 15% is... a very significant percentage. You have to do lots of efficiency improvements across every part of the world to make net zero happen. Not to mention that slice of the pie would grow to 30-40% if electricity goes zero-carbon.
And we simply have the technology to zero it out. But, like you, most people want to invent a reason the green technology is actually bad.
"electrified" is full-electric plus plug-in hybrid.
Does this mean that a non-plug-in hybrid would be in the "pure combustion-engined" bucket, or that they don't make those?
I believe the only non-plug in hybrid they make is the 911 with the T-Hybrid system in it. It uses motors to assist performance, but is not a plug-in.
It’s probably just an incredibly small number of sales?
I came here to say this. Also includes hybrids.
Electric cars are required by law to emit sound via a speaker for safety. Usually the sound is unique and somewhat electronic in nature.
Some electric sports cars, and I'm not sure but Porsche may be one of them, have a loud deep bassy faux-sports engine sound emitting from the speaker. "VROOOOM VROOOOOM VROOOM!" - on an electric car.
Does anyone else find this *extremely* weird?
It's like a petrol car having a speaker playing the coconuts (as it's replaced the horse).
> Electric cars are required by law to emit sound via a speaker for safety. Usually the sound is unique and somewhat electronic in nature.
And this is absolutely… bad. I mean requiring is good, but almost all of the execution of it is awfully bad.
It can be personal - but Hz of that sounds just makes me boil inside. That's how badly I'm receiving it. Almost no other sounds I hear on daily basis makes me uncomfortable.
And another issue - when somebody is parking the sound goes on, off, on, off, and that all the time until person is happy how car is parked. Couldn't it just make that sound all the time? Would be easier to get used to it. Same way it works with PC fans - there is no benefit to keep it as lowest as possible at all times, the trick is to keep it spinning fast enough to avoid as many changes of speed as possible - keeping the noise constant and easier to live with.
More weird is, that the electric harley davidson is by intention more loud than the gas powered ones.
But the law requires a artificial sound only for low speeds. Electric cars are indeed silent and it can be dangerous not expecting one approaching, when one is used to loud explosion engines. But I would prefer to just have no noise and people adopting.
My last ICE car (a VW GTI) did this. I could turn the engine noise up or down in the settings on the touch screen.
I think I’d prefer it sound like an ICE car vs the weird electric noises. I don’t notice when most cars drive by my house, unless they are obnoxiously loud. But someone on my street got an electric SUV about 6 months ago and I can hear it every single time; it drives me crazy.
I was hoping electric cars would cut down on noise pollution, but no such luck. I understand the sounds is there for blind people, but the sound some of these companies have picked cuts right through the walls of my house like few other things do. I’m wondering what it will sound like when we have a whole city full of them.
Totally agreed. It is beyond understanding why you would even pay extra to get these sounds. The heavenly silence is one of the great advantages of an EV in my opinion.
Yes.
Is there a difference in EU vs US regulation?
Yes, it's embarrassing
It is very obnoxious, the sound should just be enough for pedestrians to notice there's a car behind them (happened to me a few times now that there was an electric van one meter behind me that I hadn't heard at all). Tangentially related, but I came across a startup selling EV noises as NFTs once, and it still holds the palm of "most ridiculous business" in my head.
Global sales of Porsche, Audi, Mercedes and BMW brand ( BMW Group sales increased marginally, but includes) have all declined.
The end is in sight for German cars as Chinese made electric cars take over.
I have had several German cars. Never again ! Sticking to Japanese and probably Chinese cars in the future.
German cars were decent once. Now they are notorious for poor long term reliability.
If we're comparing notes, I traded in my Model 3 for a BMW i4 and I couldn't be happier. It's a nicer car and more fun to drive!
JD Power and Consumer Reports both rate BMW above average.
BTW, my impression of BMW maintenance from prior decades is expensive and not great reliability. I care about it less now with EVs because there is so much less regular maintenance. No oil changes, no brake pad changes, etc.
Yep. EVs are a once in a lifetime chance for EU and Chinese manufacturers to catch up again or even leapfrog Toyota. Until recently Toyota was 20 years ahead wrt reliability and upkeep.
Soon, battery weight and performance will be the main differentiator of vehicles.
That is no more true than it was for ICE vehicles.
Steering, braking, balance, suspension, Infotainment, UI and controls, and internal materials will all still vary widely for brands and manufacturers.
Not sure they care all that much about reliability. Just being cheap enough is enough
> Soon, battery weight and performance will be the main differentiator of vehicles.
People don't buy Corolla for performance. And even low-end EVs are "enough" thanks to the power coming on from the very lowest RPM. Aside from range all the characteristics are not performance based. It must be big enough, have expected comforts and look nice.
Sorry, I should clarify, I mean battery weight and battery performance. The other components won't be a major differentiator. They can be cheap and still be reliable enough.
The specs that we compare when EV shopping are mostly just how well the battery works (range, charge time, peak output, lifespan, power to weight, cold weather performance).
Counterpoint. After driving my Model 3 in 2022, a colleague bought his first non-BMW: a Tesla Model 3. His only complaints were the seat and the handling. Everything else he liked better about the Tesla.
This from someone who owned three or four BMWs.
You can get a BMW for $40k or $120k. Big spectrum. As another datapoint, I have one of those higher tier BMWs and even the top trim Lucid's interior feels like a downgrade compared to my car. The $50-80k BMWs also feel cheap and crappy to drive when I've tested them. Tesla can't compete on anything except their ADAS which is superior.
If you're transitioning from a barebones 330i then yeah the Tesla is probably better. But it's not even close when you compare to the top end German vehicles.
I would hope a car that costs ~$30k more is nicer and more fun to drive.
I don't mind paying more for a European product, and as for the 'poor long term reliability': we don't know what the long term reliability of Chinese vehicles is yet.
Not that it really matters, my car is 27 years old this year and I won't be getting another one but that has to do with wanting a car that is doing what I want it to do rather than what it wants to do.
I don't know if this is paranoia, but one fear I have for high-tech Chinese products is that if a world war were to start with China, that they'd have the ability to remotely disable these kinds of products.
After the Israeli attack using pagers I think this is no longer paranoid at all.
The same goes for Chinese built cloud connected hardware, especially if it is grid connected, contains heater elements or batteries. Inverters, solar panels, vehicles, 3D printers, the list is endless and all of these are either potential fire starters or ways to destabilize the grid. Used maliciously the potential for misery is pretty large. All this crap that wants to connect to the cloud from a country where your average citizen has very limited access to the internet should give you pause: if the Chinese government thinks these connections are A-ok then they must see some advantage, especially if all the services are supposedly free of charge.
> The same goes for Chinese built cloud connected hardware, [...]
It goes even more for American built or American influenced hardware.
Probably, yes, but this subthread is about war with China.
Yeah, but until this whole Greenland debacle few people would imagine a war with the US.
China is much less likely to attack civilians. Don't project america and israel's way of war onto others. I would imagine part of their strategy is to win hearts ad minds. America just kills and kills and kills and wonders why we arent loved.
Hmmm, what’s your sample size? Which wars has China been involved with and how have they treated civilians?
If Taiwan is invaded how do you think things will go if some number of Taiwanese people are defending the island mixed in with the local populace? Will the PLA call in an airstrike on an apartment with a sniper, or do you think they’ll go the hearts and minds route?
Part of the problem with your statement here, in my view, is you’re suggesting that the United States or Israel’s “way of war” is. It the default, or that in comparison to how other countries treat civilians may actually be more humane. I don’t think there’s a large sample size, or any particularly strong evidence to suggest how China will treat civilians.
And if you take into account how China has treated its own people, it’s not much better or worse than the United States. Maybe worst, actually, since Americans do have a legal right to protest.
> And if you take into account how China has treated its own people, it’s not much better or worse than the United States. Maybe worst, actually, since Americans do have a legal right to protest.
In "The Great Leap Forward" they killed tens of millions of their own. Granted, that was a long time ago, but while the current leaders may be wiser little suggests they aren't as ruthless.
in case of war, you cannot know that; if they can blow up millions of phones or routers (setting houses on fire) or ignite cars? i agree with you that currently there would be no reason to even project such an image: better to win with trade and trinkets and dialog. I would say thats always the case but he ho.
> China is much less likely to attack civilians.
They were pretty happy to attack their own civilians, I see no reason to think why that would be different abroad.
> Don't project america and israel's way of war onto others.
I'm not projecting, merely being cautious. Besides, I have no illusion about either America or Israel doing something similar, especially not with their current upper cadre but this subthread is about China).
> I would imagine part of their strategy is to win hearts ad minds.
I would imagine it isn't. See also: partnering with Putin in the war with Ukraine.
> America just kills and kills and kills and wonders why we arent loved.
Yes, but they're not alone in that.
> They were pretty happy to attack their own civilians, [...]
Yes.
> [...] I see no reason to think why that would be different abroad.
Well, you can look at the history of the PRC so far.
> I would imagine it isn't. See also: partnering with Putin in the war with Ukraine.
It's not all that much of a partnership. They are mostly squeezing Russia dry with cheap oil, and press territorial concessions out of the Tsar in the East, when he's busy in the West.
They are currently killing some of their own population in internal genocides. I don’t think they will treat others better.
No they aren't. Please provide evidence that doesn't link back to discredited hearsay by a US think tank.
I do not think it is paranoia. But we can have this from anywhere. American devices, EU devices; if I cannot analyse the firmware, ICs etc, what is going to guarantee these are not remotely exploitable. Even if Porsche never built such a thing on purpose, the car is connected so someone can break in, hack it and do stuff including possible overhead the battery so it ignites.
It does not have to be on purpose quality wise either: I had 2 spicy pillows in my life (and I have a lot of gadgets, including fully Chinese ones); a Samsung flagship phone and a macbook air. Both just unannounced got very hot and broke open: no fire but still... So I would say it is possible for a state actor to remotely hack, take over and ignite your Samsung and Macbook as apparently it can already almost happen without hackers.
What to do about it? Without just fully open sourcing hardware and software, I do not know. I mean that would not help a lot if no one reads it and finds the issues/vulnerabilities, but at least we stand a chance, vs now. Unplugging from internet is not really a thing, although, when it comes to cars and airplanes i would rather see it mandatory non connected.
People don't realize that every device with a LiPo is only one (possibly malicious) update away from becoming a fuse.
Meh, often the LiPo protection logic is hardware based to prevent just this sort of mistake/sabotage. Some protection chips are software-configurable or reprogrammable, but the parameters are again limited (by design). Perhaps you could cause long-term damage by programming it to manage the battery poorly, like repeatedly charging/discharging it deeply.
I think "every device" is just fearmongering. No software Apple/Huawei push could immediately make a phone or laptop combust. Electric cars, 3D printers, etc... I'm not so sure.
You cannot (I don't know) use the cpu, gpu etc to overheat it quick enough, during charging, to get it over the threshold?
But even if that is not possible, de-activation would he possible; finding a 0 day as nation state and using it to disable all iPhones currently connected in the US?
it's not paranoia
chips with backdoors which would allow exactly something like that (or many other things) have been found more then once in recent years AFIK
through a fancy personal car stopping working is the least relevant target. Network backbone, smart phones, and other core infrastructure is a much more relevant target. And even for cars all the non-personal vehicles (e.g. ambulance, trucks, police ...) are much more relevant targets.
Certainly anything that downloads over the air updates. I'm not mad that our government turned down import of EVs from a country that became an adversary
Disabling them is one thing. Having them auto-drive to select locations and self-immolate is another entirely.
The reverse is clear for Chinese people. Do you remember when, in the early 2000s, the US sold a Boeing 767 intended for Chinese presidential use, and Chinese authorities later reported finding numerous hidden listening devices on board? There is a Chinese Wikipedia article about the incident [1], but no dedicated English one. More information in English can be found here [2].
[1] https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%B1%9F%E6%BE%A4%E6%B0%91%E...
[2] https://www.flightglobal.com/chinese-vip-jet-was-bugged/4121...
Sadly, the US is more likely to at war with Europe than China
Japanese and Chinese are very different buckets. What is the long term reliability of Chinese cars? Nobody knows.
I wouldn't be too concerned.
Hyundai used to be synonymous with "garbage".
People who have purchased Hyundai/Kia products w/ the GDI Theta II engine would, perhaps, take issue with "used to be".
One engine issue due to a manufacturing flaw shouldn't be enough to counter their massive change in produt lines over the years
I have a decent amount of second hand experience with used cars, through my brother who is a mechanic and spent a number of years working at a used car dealership. Hyundai/Kia is the only company he ever had to do engine replacements for at said dealership, and he did dozens. All under 200k km (frequently right after the extended warranty on the engines ran out, and occasionally on the second or even third engine for the vehicle). These are cars with good service history and otherwise in excellent condition. Sometimes cars they got on trade, sometimes purchased from auctions, sometimes customer cars (after they were sold). No rhyme or reason, just a genuinely bad design that was “fixed” but never fixed.
The only other universally-bad major component is JATCO CVT transmissions. I think his record was an Infiniti QX60 that had 95k km and a blown transmission. Most small vehicle/sedan CVTs he did were in the 160-190k km range, with some lasting as long as 250k km. And of course they were not repairable, since even if parts were available, the entire thing grenades leaving basically nothing left to rebuild.
Point being, “one engine issue due to a manufacturing flaw” is drastically underselling the issue, at best. It is an incorrectly-engineered engine that fails prematurely when built within specification, except when the tolerance stackup lines up in your favour and you perform much more frequent maintenance than prescribed. Oh and the affected engines were manufactured over about 15 years (and there’s signs that their current GDI 4-cylinders are still affected).
The E-GMP Hyundai/Kia EV platform is also unreliable. Around 1 in every 50 of these cars will suddenly lose power while driving due to ICCU failure. Search any forum for the EV6 or Ioniq 5 and this is all over. Mine broke down and got towed back to the shop so many times, where it sat for ages because my dealer was sharing a single EV-qualified tech with 2 other dealers. I eventually had the car Lemon Law'd. As far as I know this issue is still unsolved after 4+ years. (The software recall made no difference.) I loved the car when it was working though.
Maybe just anecdotal evidence, but i'm noticing a lot of Kias with no brake lights. I'm suspecting bad body control modules are going to become more of a thing as these cars age.
I noticed when GMT800 trucks were blowing DRLs constantly and lo and behold there's a TSB for that. So I don't think I'm imagining things.
what it with cheap imports and no DRLs? 9/10 cars driving in the rain seem to be grey nissans that are invisible 30 feet away
https://www.dashboard-light.com/reports/Hyundai.html
For what it's worth, this puts Hyundai around "industry average", above Acura, Audi, BMW, Subaru, Mazda, Nissan.
Below Chevrolet, Honda, Porsche, Toyota.
Hyundai is fairly unreliable. They were up and coming back in the 2000s and to some extent the 2010s, but their reliability has been quite poor in the past 5-10 years and I really wouldn't recommend a Hyundai to anyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge
Yeah maybe I'll get a Chinese car in 50yrs
Anecdotal, but I'm extremely disappointed with my Hyundai Tucson purchase. It's the first car I've owned. The drive train is gone on it and the mechanic says it's a common issue. Only 140k on it, 2019. It's hard to believe I paid so much for it and got so little use.
140,000 miles is a lot of use in 7 years. "expected" design life of cars can be 10yrs/100,000 miles. Sorry to hear about your drivetrain issues. I don't know about the Tucson in particular, but many manufacturers are lying about the transmissions having "lifetime" fluid when the transmission manufacturers themselves recommend fluid changes around 60-80k. But if you don't change it, yes technically the car will make it to 100k, but then no shop will touch the transmission fluid for fear of wrecking it.
Suddenly most of the world doesn't care about human rights?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Brazil_working_conditions_...
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/human-rights-...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3v5n7w55kpo
Don't ask german car companies what they were doing between 1939 and 1945
We all know that. Doesn't mean we need to be OK with that forever should any other company attempt that?
Also don't ask VW what they did in latin America, or east China.
yes, because when cars were bad and chinese brands were cheap, it was virtuous to pinpoint human rights vs 'chinese cars are yucky and i want to look cool'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_intrinsic_val...
No one cared to begin with. Just look up the horrors involved with Apple phones. People want their fancy devices. Doesn't matter if slave labor is involved. Doesn't matter if we need to add nets to prevent laborers from killing themselves instead of putting up with the horrible conditions we force them into.
Porsche / Audi are selling a lot more cars then they were 10-15 years ago. I think they will be okay. Chinese brands will cut into all establish automaker sales, but the German cars have strong brands that symbolize luxury. Look at Land Rover. There are cars are completely unreliable and they are selling more than ever at increasingly ludicrous prices.
I agree with you, but luxury car manufactures largely sell leases. So they are designing their cars for that market.
I am very much interested in electric cars that look like normal cars. I understand the battery changes things. But why they have to shit up the design of 75% of electric cars is nonsensical to me
Designers can’t help themselves when given the freedom to take things in a new direction, they forget there might be practical reasons for the old designs. (See Liquid Glass.)
ICE cars are on the way to becoming obsolete.
Japan doesn't produce many strong competing EVs at the moment.
Why are you sticking with Japanese cars? why not American? But yes definitely Chinese EVs in the future when they come to America/Europe.
americans are junk in comparison
Teslas are junk? have you ever driven one recently?
The company that makes my pickup truck is headquartered in the Netherlands.
Are all German cars the same? Is there a reason they all declined together, in your opinion?
no OP, but as someone who comes from a family where German cars were king for several reasons, who have all become disillusioned and now buy Asian cars, where the reason is simple. American style corporate greed infested German auto-manufactures and it shows at every level.
It is most obvious with things like subscription services for basic function, like acceleration or the seat heaters you already paid for, but it has been present in a more insidious way for far longer, like intentionally breaking good design so that small cheap and easy to mass manufacture parts break at predictable schedules. These are then quoted to you at $900+ for a part that will cost you 60 through china, for what is a plastic mould, some magnets and a wire. The cheap replacements work just fine and last just as long.
So, over time, we've become so fed-up with it, and it is a problem present from bmw, vw, audi and beyond, that we just started going with Toyota/Hyundai or Chinese EV's etc, and no one has a gripe since. Repairs when required are cheap and easy, often easily done at home, cars drive almost if not just as well, mileage is comparable, joy of driving is comparable, overall there is simply no value left in German cars beyond the status symbol, something we care little for.
I always loved BMWs from the 80s and 90s, but settled on Volkswagens because I was just a poor teen or early 20 year old. Finally got the means to buy a top of the line X7, and have regretted the purchase for may of the reasons you listed.
The software is garbage, the car is too fancy (electric folding seats) but poorly implemented so it’s just frustrating. Total nanny car, can’t turn off backup beeping alerts. Rear row of seats randomly go to full hot on the climate system.
New battery is $700. Can only use a BMW battery installed by a BMW technician with computer access (they are coded and only a tech with the keys can pair the new battery to your car).
Should have just bought a damned minivan, but the wife likes it and doesn’t want to get rid of it.
The enthusiasts car company is no more.
I love my older (80's and 90's) Mercedes. Reliable and pretty simple to work on. But I would not buy a new one for similar reasons as you cite for your BMW.
But parts for the older ones are getting harder to come by. The Classic Center isn't what it once was. You used to be able to get almost any part for any car but many things are NLA for cars that are only 20-30 years old.
I haven't bought German ever, but everything I hear seems pretty negative.
Some of the recent models have plastic timing chain guides and have turned the engine around so that the timing chains are in the back. The only innocent explanation is that the car is only meant to last 10 years at most, so saving the money on plastic instead of metal and screwing whoever owns the car when the timing chains need to be redone (or ruining the engine when the chain fails) is out of scope for their quality team.
There were many older models of BMW that had an electric water pump. If that sounds silly, well, it is. And it failed frequently and was again, very difficult to replace.
I just don't have any respect for German automotive engineering. Reliability is job #1. And the company's themselves, well, "collusive" is a pretty good term. I saw an estimate that German auto industry collusion resulted in about $10k of additional cost per vehicle to U.S. buyers. The cases have somehow been kept quiet, but they've at least been caught holding back innovations until the other automakers have a competitive response, and gaslighting regulators into allowing higher emissions from diesels in the name of reducing the size and filling frequency of the AdBlue tank. I've also heard that there's another layer of this in the parts suppliers. Explains how a wiper motor or wiper body module is somehow hundreds of dollars.
> There were many older models of BMW that had an electric water pump. If that sounds silly, well, it is. And it failed frequently and was again, very difficult to replace.
On the face of it, it's not actually a bad idea. The electric pump can run at an optimal speed regardless of engine rpm. This means the pump can be downsized, because otherwise if it's driven directly from the engine it'd have to be sized for the worst case scenario of low rpm and high load.
Same reason why many vehicles nowadays have electric radiator fans rather than driven directly from the crankshaft like in the "good ol' days". (Of course with transverse mounted engines a crankshaft driven fan doesn't really work either, so that's another big reason to go for an electric fan.)
Now, of course this concept can be badly implemented, just like any other part of the design.
Putting the timing chain at the back of the engine away from the front is generally done to reduce torsional vibrations and tends to help with space claim, especially for pedestrian safety systems where you need a lot of travel space under the bonnet. But yeah, serviceability suffers.
Electric water pumps are a great idea though, instead of having an aux belt with tensioners and pulleys, you have on single part that can be unmounted and swapped out. Can run after the engine shuts off too to help cool it down.
> Electric water pumps are a great idea
They are a great idea if they are reliable, or cheap and easy to replace. The BMW unit was neither.
The timing chain thing also came with plastic parts. Mount the timing chain at the back if it's needed for other goals, but don't cheap out on a bit of metal. It really seems like planned obsolescence.
The majority of German Luxury cars are leased more often than bought outright. I think it was Audi where 80% of new car purchases were leases. They are not building the car for long term ownership. They are building the car for people that want to change cars every 3 years.
Hey. He has ancedtoal evidence he used to make a sweeping generalization about all cars based on country even though that grouping has little to no value in the cars themselves.
Does this also apply to electric cars? They use different platforms most of the time.
I’ll be honest, kind of tired of every automotive-related thread turning into blowing smoke up China’s ass. It’s become almost as predictable as what goes on in Windows-related threads.
Well, it's nice to know that people are enthusiastic about manufacturing happening someplace; I just wish more of it would happen in the US.
IMO it’s just to the point where it becomes off-topic. This article isn’t about the US vs China.
Aren't many of these non-pure-gas-powered vehicles still very gas-heavy, but just have an electric system for extra oomph?
Not a very good year for them though: https://longyield.substack.com/p/porsche-in-crisis-when-an-i...
I just buy japanese cars/vehicles these days. With that being said a lot of them are manufactured stateside - especially larger vehicles. I had a Mitsu I was very happy with. I've also purchased Hyundai made in Korea and it is wonderful but not much better that what was built in Iowa.
I grew up by the assembly plants in Ohio and worked there on various temp jobs in the late 80s/early 90s. There was (maybe still is) a lot of local pride in the product that comes out of those plants, the amount of energy that was put into quality control was boggling to my young mind. This included the motorcycle plant, where I had a few jobs correcting supplier parts that were just a smidge out of spec before bolting them on to the ATVs they were cranking out at the time.
Made me realize quality is a process that requires investment and commitment, and not some magic quality imbued upon the product by the locale in which it's made.
Buying an ICE vehicle in 2026 is like...buying a video cassette player when DVD players were already coming out?
Well, they make perfect sense to buy down here in here Australia. When I replace my current seven year old ICE car, it'll either be a diesel or a petrol electric hybrid. In either case it'll be a Japanese one.
No, there are many good, valid reasons to own an ICE vehicle.
Buying a BEV in 2026 is like buying a Beta VCR when VHS is just coming out?
We are in the transition phase from ICE to an Electric motor. It's too early to call who can nail it. Currently the Chinese cars are cheap and have long range. But in India Tatas and Mahindra makes cheap EVs that may not be as reliable but people are still buying them a lot. In US gas is still cheap compared to income, so hybrids like Camry are always going to be preferred over a low end EV like the model 3.
It all depends on service network and value for money. And now charging network and range. People who find a way to give you value for money will probably nail it.
In some european countries (atleast in finland), you pay less taxes for "electrified" cars than pure gas powered, so most people who buy porsche (atleast in finland) does not ever charge the car via charger, and never drive with "hybrid mode".
Hybrid porsches are called "tax evasion hybrids" atleast in finland
This is true to some extent in the UK as well. We have a curious company car tax regime where CO2 emissions are used to define the tax rates so hybrids are somewhat lower, although it's still onerous compared to just buying a car personally.
However, pure EVs are taxed at very low rates in comparison, so if you own a company or have the ability to do a "salary sacrifice" for a car with your employer, it becomes very tax advantageous to get an EV. Your company can also pay for your insurance, EV charge installation, public charging costs (even for private mileage) and so forth, so it's very common to see small business owners in EVs compared to private buyers. Porsches also tend to have particularly low monthly payments compared to their value since I guess they hold their value well and can be traded back in at the end of the financing period. I don't have one, though, as a Porsche is just crying out to be keyed or mocked where I live compared to a more modest car.
same in Poland - 9,3% tax for electrified cars, and 18,6% for gasoline ones.
German cars have lost their technological edge. They can't even build their own infotainment systems anymore. They're paying billions to China to do it for them.
I can't overstate how catastrophically stupid this is. Paying what they consider smaller competitors real cash to build core software, instead of developing that capability in-house or acquiring a few startups with decent engineering talent.
This isn't just a bad decision. It reveals a completely dysfunctional decision-making process and a total absence of technical ambition.
People who say but "Porche/Mercedes/etc.." has this design. Luxury segment is not coming from nowhere. This is the same reason british luxury cars are gone essentially. It will take some time, but EU built cars will be in a constant decline.
What's even more fun, they don't want to protect their own market the same way chinese did.
> instead of developing that capability in-house or acquiring a few startups with decent engineering talent.
VW has a JV with Rivian. I'd consider that to be similar to what you suggest.
https://rivianvw.tech/
Rivian will not be involved in infotainment for the most part
> instead of developing that capability in-house or acquiring a few startups with decent engineering talent.
It's usually the former and their infotainment stuff is usually nothing to get excited about. When they buy startups they get bogged down and burn off the talent quickly.
Maybe the solution is not having the same small set of car companies trying to pull off the survival balancing act as we did a century ago, maybe that's why China is progressing quicker.
Their biggest brand, BYD, is also relatively the "oldest."
It's the governemt priorities, local gov in China is building EV companies, AI companies. EU governemnt, US local gov is building shelters, or people who kick out people from a shelter on a voters mood swing.
A friend from the EU visited recently. He said, "At least the Netherlands is doing much better than 10 years ago...we have lights, roads." That one sentence captures the entire mindset gap.
The bitter irony: Philips literally built ASML and TSMC, then sold both. Now those companies dominate global semiconductor supply chains while Philips sells... healthcare equipment at a loss.
And ASML is about to lose it's dominance too.
But yeah...lights on the streets. Built with Chinese LEDs. Powered by Chinese solar panels. Bought using budget deficits. In debt.
And the deficit keeps growing. Some EU countries faster, some slower. But the trend is unmistakable.
My homecountry the Netherlands is the worst. The push for becoming 'small America' had us sell of everything we could possibly be proud off to other countries, including the US (mostly Blackrock and Vanguard) and India and China. Privatize everything because it works so well in the US, sell it all (private and public) off to the highest bidder and hope for globalization and the market. NL is doing well economy wise still, but I wonder how much better we could've done if we kept it all to grow.
I studied math at the University of Eindhoven which, at the time, basically meant you would work at Philips or one of its companies. I did not and in hindsight I don't think I could've handled the downfall of that company up close.
That generation is the worst across Europe. They sold out entire industries, bought up all the land, let in millions of immigrants. Then they demanded to be kept alive during COVID, leading to massive overspending and health care premiums rising.
In return, they raised rents and health care premiums are still rising. And they are the last generation with massive egos (early boomer and before).
The US didn't privatize everything: it was largely private to begin with. The US had a near laissez-faire economy until the WW1-WW2 era. The 1850 to 1910 era is incredibly devoid of government regulations on the economy, which was of course undergoing a gigantic industrial expansion. European states were not formed in any manner similar to the US. The modern European nation was largely constructed in the post WW1 and post WW2 environment, they were heavily remade by the wars and what came after, including their social welfare structures and their various private/public ownership models. If you go back and look at the governing structures of most any of the European powers prior to WW2, they were nearly all: kingdoms or fascist. The US is floating on centuries of continually accumulating cruft, whereas most of the European nations have had hard break points where they reset the board and started fresh.
> The US didn't privatize everything
I did not mean that; i meant NL thought all privatised would be better looking at the US so they did (mostly). So they took the US as blueprint rather than repeat their steps.
To close the loop, the debt is treasury bonds held by other countries?
can you expand on ASML losing its dominance? i have not heard that
It hasn't happened yet. However China has demonstrated they can make the same thing now and just need some improvements. Time will tell but it isn't looking good for them long term.
Amen. This is some of the best descriptions of the current mid to upper class mentality in Europe. Frankly, I think only the common man feels what is really happening here.
I didn’t think Harmon Kardon was Chinese?
> They can't even build their own infotainment systems anymore. [...] I can't overstate how catastrophically stupid this is
Car manufacturers have for a very long time acted mostly as integrators and outsourced a vast amount of components, from braking systems to windows, lights, gearboxes alternators starters and other engine parts, electronic harnesses, suspension systems, seats, buttons and others. Lots of conglomerates nowadays even use common frames and engines ("platforms") across brands, developing engines is so expensive that they're sometimes shared across brands that aren't even part of the same groups. Infotainment and electronics are practically never built in-house, but instead purchased from Bosch, Samsung and the likes.
This makes sense, this isn't their specialty, the core market of vehicle buyers buy it for the car, not the infotainment system. Especially when talking about German cars, what they specialize into is the actual power train and quality of assembly. Not the radio.
My friend let me introduce you to the powerhouse of most european cars for 5 decades: Bosch.
it's not new. companies assemble tech, not build it.
https://youtu.be/ghY78-yWr7o
two things that stood out for me:
1. A lot of hybrids 2. "Reasons for the decrease in both regions include supply gaps for the combustion-engined 718 and Macan models due to EU cybersecurity regulations."
What is the second about?
New regulations in the EU require increased security features in connected cars and secure updates that couldn’t be implemented in the older digital systems of the 718/Macan without redesigning all new systems, and since Porsche was planning on electrifying those models first, they moved that ahead rather than create new ICE models. In retrospect that was too early a move to BEV for them.
Porsche sold more electrified cars than gas cars in Europe in 2025. Pretty interesting to see the shift happening so quickly.
It’s not rocket science. Porsche discontinued the gas Macan in the EU, leaving the new all electric Macan as the primary option.
That’s the top seller. So… you end up with more electric than gas — because you don’t sell it.
Is this shocking? Obviously including PHEVs helps a bit, but even outside of this it is exactly what should be happening. Their biggest sellers are SUVs, and at these price points, the EVs can be substantially than their ICE counterparts. For 2026, they probably won't even need the PHEVs to get there, since the Cayenne EV is the best EV that they've built so far.
Given that they walked back many of their BEV goals in mid-to-late 2025, some may find this surprising. The K1 was supposed to be all electric vehicle when it was announced, and they are now going to release it as a gas & PHEV first instead.
They can try selling me an electric sports car the day they get the weight back under ~1500kg. Electric cars are fast in straight line, but that extra inertia is a killer in curves. I want a long range go-kart.
Their ICE sports cars barely make that in a lot of cases. I think you will need a long wait and a different manufacturer to get a very light weight BEV sports car.
Early 986 Boxsters weighted ~1300kg. Newer 718 models are a tad heavier, reaching 1400kg. The ICE Macan was 1900kg and newer electric ones are 2300kg and that's for their medium sized SUV! This craziness has to stop.
putting the rating together that way is some type of "automotive market Garry Mandering", Id say?
Just to be sure: electrified means hybrid and EV-s.
I think a lot of people are missing a point here. Cars are not (just) use-values. They are expression of desire. They are, for some brands, classic Veblen Goods.
Porche possibly could sell more by putting the price up
They put their marque behind EV and Hybrid. It worked. Their brand sold well. This is in contradistinction to vendors who won't think about this market niche in positives, but are being dragged into it.
This is true for quite a number of brands of vehicles. Also I don't understand what a modern Porsche is. Porsche to me was always a Rear Engined, (normally) RWD sports car i.e. the 911. I am personally on the look for a 944 (believe it or not they are cheaper than JDM cars of a similar vintage).
When I see a Porsche SUV, to me that isn't a Porsche. It looks like any other SUV on the road with Porsche badge on it. It akin to someone putting a Apple Sticker over Dell Logo on their laptop.
The same happens when you see a Bentley or Rolls Royce SUV.
> They put their marque behind EV and Hybrid. It worked. Their brand sold well.
They are losing money. Sales are down and they are planning to move back to ICE and are postponing or cancelling EV projects.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/porsche-loses-1-1-billion-220...
That article throws out the wild claim “The news comes at a time when EV demand is on the decline across the car world.”
EV sales increased around 20% last year.
I see this claim made all over the place in the media, and never made with evidence.
Took me about 12 seconds in google to find a reputable source[1].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/global...
A 944 isn't a rear engine RWD sports car...
They have starkly raised their prices. The base 911 is nearly 40% more expensive than it was in 2020.
Yeah, such a weird comment. A 911 Turbo S is over $300k now. This car used to be low 200s for a well optioned one.
They're taking some kind of Nvidia strategy where they just charge more money for the new generation rather than making the new generation just objectively better than the previous for the same cost. The new GTS basically is a replacement for the old 911 Turbo - and at the same cost...
I was considering putting in an order for the new generation until the prices were announced. $300k is purely in exotic territory and if I am going down the exotic path, I'll gladly get something far more ridiculous. (Which is now the plan - just waiting for a carb legal one to appear on the market)
> where they just charge more money for the new generation rather than making the new generation just objectively better than the previous for the same cost.
Well, the new T-hybrid thing is really cool. But I'm not someone who spends $100k+ on a car.
T-hybrid is cool, yes. Ironically the first electric turbocharger hitting the streets just when Formula I is banning them..
Did it work? I'm not sure the financial or car community would agree. They already walked back their BEV strategy:
"Due to market conditions, the new SUV series above the Cayenne, which was previously planned to be fully electric, will initially be offered exclusively as combustion engine and plug-in hybrid at market launch. In addition, current models such as the Panamera and the Cayenne will be available with combustion engines and plug-in hybrids well into the 2030s."
https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2025/company/porsche-realign...
This is pretty much exactly what they’re doing. They even admit in TFA that their dedication to the customer experience is part of the reason for declining sales - spending time on quality action rather than immediately profitable ones.
Can't wait until Chinese EVs come to America
They'll be in Canada soon, and some will make it across the border.
you know the sad thing? Porsche didn't even try.
They could have copied Teslas playbook and create a cool, fun, overpowered electric 911 or Targa or pull an old, fun concept and make it electric.
Instead, they have a boring SVU and the panamera, one of the probably ugliest car they have.
No one buys a Porsche because they want a sensible car for their family or they need something with large storage. They want midlife-crisis cars that go fast and look sleak.
They are now giving up on their entire electric strategy.
I don't get it. They could have ridden the wave of electric fun vehicles, instead they are giving in. Either because they can't do it or because they had no real interest to begin with.
> No one buys a Porsche because they want a sensible car for their family or they need something with large storage
I know two porsche-owners personally. One sometimes uses his porsche (non SUV, but the small fast one) to go on family vacations (with the kids cramped at the too small back seats, which seems funny to me). The other has an SUV and lives in the country with bad roads; They sometimes use their porsche to commute to work and for everyday-stuff like shopping.
> The other has an SUV and lives in the country with bad roads; They sometimes use their porsche to commute to work and for everyday-stuff like shopping.
That blows my mind.
I guess its the same mindset as people who buy a mercedes "jeep" (don't know the product id) or range rover and live the middle of the city.
Sorry I'm lost (getting late over here). Wouldn't a Porsche SUV fit perfectly out in the country on bad roads? The Cayenne is made for it?
I'm hoping Porsche's profit woes will lead them to making 911 supply less restrictive--especially in the US. New 911s in US trade above sticker price and have long (not Ferrari long), but long waiting lists.
probably worth mentioning they discontinued the ICE Macan (and 718 Cayman/Boxster) in Europe?
also they put a dinky 2KWh battery in some 911s
a lot of these luxury brands have been eating off china the past few years
but now they've lost their luster since china makes cars better than most luxury brands and china has a moat in EVs
so what's left is either the US or emerging markets
> china makes cars better than most luxury brands
More like China makes cheaper cars which is enough for most people.
Believe it or not, people aren't buying Audis in China because they're thrifty.
China was a huge market for Audi in the past as luxury status symbol. However, now Chinese buyers are so enamored with new tech-heavy Chinese luxury cars that Audi had to go make a whole sub-brand specific to the Chinese market just to stay in the game[1].
[1] https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/en/press-releases/double-de...
Google "Zeekr 9X" and then come back here if you still feel this way.
That is ugly AF and there is no way I'd buy that over a Porsche.
Zeekr 001 is prettier outside but inside still is terrible. https://www.datocms-assets.com/143770/1728613060-rectangle-4...
Calling it ugly is weird. It’s a copy-paste of a rolls Royce phantom, slapped on an SUV frame, with the cheapest possible interior they could design.
There are much better ways to insult this garbage product. :)
Can I also rip the steering wheel right off the car if I use a bit too much force, like in the Omodas?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vY9HegbOd9c
Watching my very, very MAGA 'friends' purchasing byd's is hilarious. I've also, of late, noticed fewer and fewer Teslas around.
You have MAGA friends outside the United States?
There are way too many, unfortunately. For example, Venezuelans are 99% MAGA.
People with luxury beliefs can afford luxury items, news at 5.
I was reading about Porsche this week on reddit. lots of complaints about Taycans.
always have been a fan of Porsche.
hope they find the way forward
I used to really be into cars up to a few years ago.
These days, I think it is just far better to do without a car. I like being very local, and if I really need to go somewhere outside my city (SF) I'll just not lol.
I'll take a flight to visit my parents or my closest friends. Everyone else, we can just meet online.
I have no friends in SF, so I'm just sorta dissolved into the neighborhood. When I did have a car, I'd go on long drives but looking back that was just a waste of time. Maybe I'll drive again when I've "made it" but until then, gimme some Brooks lol.
And they all look the same and ugly as hell.
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They sold both of them?!
/s
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This does read/interpret a bit odd, because the Hummer H2 doesn’t strike me as a reliable vehicle and I’ve generally heard of them to be cost sinks (completely disregarding the horrible efficiency).
Why not start off looking at the cheapest EV or PHEV that you can find without high mileage that’ll fit your daily driving habits, then give it a test drive? Consider how much monthly expenses will cost (might save ~90% on fuel) and then consider if you like the driving characteristics more.
Yeah it's not the... best. I bought it kind of on a lark, and the sunk cost made me reluctant to let go it.
Any brand recommendations? I'm really not one for 'smart' features, though I know they're kind of intrinsic to electric vehicles.
For cheap, the 2018 and later Nissan Leafs (old tech) or an Ariya (new tech, nothing notably exciting.
Maybe also check out Ioniq 5, EV6, Equinox, etc.
FWIW, my wife drives a Mach-E and I drive a Fisker Ocean. The Mach-E is very comfortable but tends to be a bit higher in price than some other options. The Fisker Ocean is.. (from what you’ve said) probably not for you.
Also, a less efficient option with less “tech” would be a Silverado WT (work truck), those have a lot of range and sometimes you can find them for good used prices. Those are a hit or miss for deals because the MSRP is on the higher end.
Excellent bait, really top notch stuff — no notes.