Batteries have become much cheaper, making energy storage far more affordable.
And yet, EV prices stubbornly high in North America.
A la corporate profits.
There is a reason why the United States government blocks the sale of Chinese EVs. It would destroy the American car sector.
It should be destroyed
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If only prices were related to costs … 😄
There are plenty of EVs below the median price Americans are paying for new cars ~$50k. People aren’t buying EVs because they don’t like them / the dealerships aren’t pushing them, not the price as they’re willing to shell out even more for a top of the line pickup.
There isn’t an EV for sale in America I want. Almost all are SUVs and the ones that aren’t still have iPads instead of dashboards and data tracking.
There is one that I want in Europe but I can’t have it because I’m a free American.
People will literally take any excuse not to pay attention while driving. All this iPad on wheels stuff has gone too far. I was driving a newer car recently, in a foreign country, on unfamiliar roads, and had to figure out how to use the defrost VIA THE FUCKING TOUCHSCREEN while driving. A moment longer an I would have been driving with my head out the window trying to find a space to pull over. Give me a spedo, tachometer, and some knobs for the air and I’ll be set. What beats the good old three knob (direction, fan speed, temp) combo? It’s practically perfect. All these distractions should be banned. If there is a radio, steering wheel controls should be mandatory and they should test them by putting average folks in the driver seat and asking them to perform basic functions. If it’s not intuitive, if it’s not distracting, it shouldn’t get manufactured.
No, you don’t need to pay attention now because of Tesla autopilot, it’ll drive for you /s
Also, have you bought 9volt batteries recently? Batteries are NOT cheaper in the real world in any use case in my experience.
And the options are still not great.
I of course looked into used EV but…there’s nothing to buy used. You can only get shit with less than 80kW batteries for under $15k in Canada. Think 2006 - 2015 models with high mileage so even less range. I need something that can go 60 kilometers when it’s -40’C outside. Looks like I need to eat the gas prices for another 5 years or so waiting for bigger used battery capacity to trickle down.
What size of car are you looking at?
Chevy Bolt has a 60kWh and will go over 200km in the winter and closer to 400km in the summer.
Lots of them around 15k CAD. Price has been creepying up in the last few weeks. I need to grab one myself.
I can’t be picky about make/model at all. Here’s the options as of posting for my entire province:
These seem too small of a battery and worn so range anxiety is what I’m worried about. Perhaps foolishly you tell me lol.
I’m much less willing to deal with scum car lot dealers if I can help it, but these guys who are a 4 hour drive one way away from me are another option:
https://www.goelectricyyc.com/used/priceF/10000/priceT/20000
They do have Bolts right now but not affordable/too new for me. I’ll keep an eye out.
Keep in mind battery degradation and -30% range in winter here.
Thx for helping tho
Almost all Bolts should have newish batteries or a stupid long warranty on the battery.
Degradation is not really a thing on thermally managed batteries, IE only as issue on the Nissan Leaf and the eGolf to lesser extend.
Lots of Bolts in Quebec if you are willing to have one shipped. ($1000-2000).
I really regret not getting one a year or two ago when their value was sort of tanked.
I’ve never considered shipping a car or how to get that done. I’ll look into it but if you have any advice about that please do share.
I just have to factor in shipping, OOP inspection, and getting a proper charger installed.
I really regret not getting one a year or two ago when their value was sort of tanked.
Yeahhh I chose home reno instead lol. Still maybe for the best idk CoL skyrockets again.
Ouf my subaru + jeep + dual sport and cruiser combined cost less than the cheapest POS GM ev used i need AWD + snow tires to make it up the mountain passes here in the winter, and when it’s more than free ing out I take the bike every day which gets 60+ mpg. I can’t wait for batteries to get lighter and EV bikes to become more popular, I would love to commute to work every day on an electric motorcycle. I have an old naked street bike I blew the transmission out of at 86k miles, I keep thinking about gutting the gas tank and pulling the drivetrain and electrifying it but alas time and money do not yet permit…
Lol. Although this claim might be technically true, comparing the cost of the first prototype lithium ion battery with a modern mass produced batteries is apples to oranges.
But the savings haven’t flowed down to us. Gotta make line go up, it seems.
Lithium ion batteries are far cheaper now at a consumer level than they were thirty years back.
EDIT: I’m actually surprised that a higher proportion of laptops today don’t ship with 100 Wh batteries. Go back some years, and shrinking the battery had a much larger difference in cost than it does today. The larger battery gives you longer battery longevity (makes it more reasonable to charge to 80%, say), can be used to make a laptop run more quickly, can power more devices. The only drawback is weight, and it isn’t that heavy.
Blame Shell.
You mean thank?
No. We’d have had this already if Shell and Exxon mobile and their ilk didn’t fight it.
In 1991, lithium-ion batteries cost around $9,200 per kilowatt-hour — 33 years later, they cost just $78.
Where can I get lithium-ion batteries for $78 per kilowatt-hour?
We all dream of electric open source vehicles and public transit!
Like electric bicycles with controllers that can be easily swapped, programmed, and tinkered with?
Yes, but also for cars, VTOL’s, trams, trains. HSR, boats, submarines, airplanes, etc that people can make. In future airships similar to Treasure Planet (but for on-planet not in space), and spaceships as more. Mechs, exosuits, etc are other stuff open source community-run would be good for
The price of the batteries was never really the issue, it was their weight versus their capacity with some consideration towards size and robustness.
As far as I can tell, today the biggest hurdle is charging.
The energy density steadily increased over time while prices decreased: This article includes some interesting background info and the following chart.
It should be pointed out that those two changes are very much not equal. Energy density has only increased by a factor of ~5, whereas cost has fallen by a factor of ~90 (by eye).
Buy SLDP. Solid state battery company It’s the next big thing.
I’ve been losing money on Dragonfly for months. Unfortunately, the market can be irrational longer than you can be solvent.
Always true for any investment. A bit of a gamble. Of course it doesn’t help that Trump tries to emphasize internal combustion engines over electric cars. But he will be gone soon enough. The entire world is transitioning to electric cars. Some people will try to hang on to the old tech. It won’t last.
But he will be gone soon enough.
The fossil fuel lobby is older than Trump and far more influential, digging its roots deep into both major parties back to the Cleveland administration.
Absolutely agree. That said, there sure are a lot of Teslas and Rivians driving around today. My bet is that solid state batteries, which are right around the corner, will significantly change things.
If you have an electric car that can recharge in the same amount of time that it takes to fill the tank with gas, and that has a range of 500 mi plus, how is it not better and easier than a gas car in every way?
That said, there sure are a lot of Teslas and Rivians driving around today.
Toyota outsells Tesla 10:1.
You notice Teslas because they look bizarre, while Toyotas fade into the crowd. Same with Rivians. Ford fully outstrips them by volume, but damn if that chasis doesn’t pop.
If you have an electric car that can recharge in the same amount of time that it takes to fill the tank with gas
You don’t. Even the highest end Chinese EVs need a solid 5 minutes to get to 70% charge.
I’m stick stuck on hybrids for the off instance I need to make a 400 mile drive.
Damn shame they cancelled that HSR through Texas. Would love to not drive at all.
5 minutes to 70% charge today. 10:1 Toyotas over Teslas today, with lithium ion batteries.
That changes with solid state batteries. Everything changes. Charge time and range with solid state batteries changes everything.
Long SLDP.
Why would you choose this over others?
It’s the only company that has true solid state technology that it can produce at scale. Or, soon will be able to. Its main business model is selling the electrolyte powder to battery manufacturers. Do some reading on seekingalpha.com if you are interested
I see that bitchy downvoters are a thing here just like on Reddit. Anyone who thinks solid state batteries are not the next big thing is simply wrong.
It absolutely is the next big thing. Whether SLDP ends up being a brilliant investment is obviously a much more complicated question.
The grid… Cannot sustain in the US.
The grid could under real leadership. Your vampire squid parasitic infection is the problem here.
Even if that is the case, I would argue the grid could sustain people charging EVs at various times during the day or setting up off-peak charging schedule than it can sustain all the AI slop being generated 24-7.
Yet the people I hear complaining about the theoretical load EVs could technically put onto the grid have nothing to say about the AI data centers that are actively raising energy costs and demanding more power than the local infrastructure can actually provide.
And really, it could sustain if we would have leadership that would support efforts to do so instead of trying to hinder renewables deployment in favor of more fossil fuels that are also going up in price because of their bullshit.
Data centers are absolutely consuming a bunch of power and we’re paying for it, I agree!! California suffered brown outs from everyone charging during there day at work or at night. Idk of that’s been corrected, but that’s also why Trump relaxed coal and oil regulations so we could get enough power-though I hear some data centers are using jet engine turbines to supplement them smh.
So while batteries can be affordable, lithium is too dangerous, and the technology hasn’t quite got to the point for widespread adoption, my opinion. Solid state and sodium ion are better technologies just around the corner that offer loner range, faster charging, and safer in accidents.
Solid state and sodium ion are better technologies just around the corner
They’ve been “around the corner” for nearly a decade. While the tech is promising, it has yet to really be scaled up for mass market. Also, while I agree lithium has it’s risks, but so do ICE cars and a lot of things we deal with on a day to day. Think of how many lithium batteries exist in the world and how few catastrophic failures there are.
You hear about EVs batteries catching fire because it’s a new technology and corporate media is in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry. ICE cars catch fire all the time, so much so that it’s rarely if ever reported on, and only local news if that. Meanwhile every EV fire is a national story because it’s novel and they want to spread misinformation about the tech.
I hear some data centers are using jet engine turbines
Specifically, Twitter AI/Grok is poisoning Memphis, TN because the local infrastructure cannot supply all the power the data center there “needs” (read: wants). They are illegally running diesel generators that are only meant to be used in emergencies because they are so bad with their emissions.
The local neighborhoods have had countless health issues and people have literally died from them. Musk is killing people so his slop machine can generate child abuse material. Also, the neighborhoods in question are prominently black, which adds a whole extra dimension of racism on top of the “fuck the poor” mentality he has.
why Trump relaxed coal and oil regulations
That’s not why he did that. He did that because he is bought by the same fossil fuel executives. He’s done more damage to our energy infrastructure because he’s killed a ton of projects to get renewables deployed.
He also has a personal grievance against wind power, or as he likes to call them “windmills”, because he didn’t like the few off shore ones that he could see from his golf course somewhere in the UK.
The US was poised to be the leader in renewable energy and instead the corrupt politicians, on both “sides” mind you, decided to stifle the innovation on both renewables and EVs, letting China become the current leader.
He and the rest of the fascist have hindered renewable adoption in the US because of their corruption. Rather than be energy independent we are forced to rely on fossil fuels and on top of that we actually export most of the oil we produce because “free market”, as companies get more money selling it abroad than domestically.
So we import oil they make more expensive by tariffs and illegal wars while they prevent us from reducing our reliance on said oil and allow private companies to profit off of oil we produce by exporting it, so we can’t even be energy independent with our own oil.
Also, they fearmonger about China “beating us in AI”, when outside of Deepseek there hasn’t been any big revelations from China and Deepseek was only a big thing because US companies were not innovating but brute forcing the tech. I’m sure China is still doing research on the tech, but they likely understand the limitations of it and don’t have the private investors inflating a bubble hoping/wishing it can replace workers.
So to recap, we are wasting tons of resources on “AI” because companies want to try and replace workers and they use fearmongering about China to excuse the waste while they ignore the fact that China is kicking our ass when it comes to EVs and renewable energy.
Lithium hadn’t really had catastrophic failures itself, I’m speaking more fake from car accidents. Tesla’s awfully inaccurate autopilot or self driving or whatever, and when those cells are damaged, they’re dangerous.
Ice engines are mostly explosive in movies lol. I think Mythbusters or some from the show shot at gas tanks that were full and partially filled hoping to ignite.
I agree on all the energy stuff, were stuck with corporate interests ruining the environment so they can have even more profit!
Tesla is one company run by a fascist idiot. He decided to market regular driver assistance features as “auto pilot” and idiots think they can sleep in the car while it drives them off a cliff.
Most modern cars have some form of adaptive cruse and lane assist. My car (not a Tesla) has lane centering where it will follow the lines on the road along with adaptive cruse and makes highway driving way less stressful, but you still have to keep hold of the steering wheel and be ready to take over as it’s far from perfect.
It will sometimes follow off ramps and when lanes split or merge with odd lines it will lose tracking, but as long as you pay attention I’ve not had any issues like some describe with the wheel “jerking hard” to randomly turn. I literally just tighten my grip when I feel it wanting to drift toward a different lane or off ramp and it will keep going straight.
The tech isn’t inherently dangerous if people use it correctly.
As for ICE cars catching fire, they literally do. Not like the movies but an accident that is bad enough and there is a fuel leak that has a high chance to catch fire. Fuel lines can also dry rot or the 12V system can fry itself if there is a fault in a place that won’t hit a fuse.
Also a quick google: https://www.evengineeringonline.com/did-you-know-ice-vehicles-pose-fire-risks-60-times-higher-than-evs/
Gasoline and diesel cars experience 1,530 fires per 100,000 vehicles, compared to just 25 fires for EVs.
That’s from over a year ago, but again goes to show that gas cars catch fire orders of magnitude more often per capita. Oddly enough, hybrid shows over twice the rate of non-hybrid ICE apparently due to them being more complex than traditional ICE or full EVs.
- Start investing in (green/cheap) power
- Dynamic contracts (off-peak charging)
Pulling oil from the ground is so much less sustainable, and it will only get more expensive
I would love to see some hybrid cars that run gas get converted to propane (like the rental trucks at Lowe’s) so you’re now even cleaner and less dependent on fossil fuels (though still reliant on natural gas).
I would imagine running a Chevy Volt-like vehicle where the gas engine functioned more like a generator, running propane, would get pretty far on a small LPG cylinder!
Should’ve put a fourth line to make sure we understand the drop
https://www.notboring.co/p/the-electric-slide
A long but very worthwhile read for anyone wanting to understand the electrification industry.
