Who Will & Who Won't Buy EVs

Humanity - boiled down to six flavors.

pass.

Besides, I don't fit the largest category:
Wealthy Home Owner.

 

Sounds more like "Dreamers" to me...

Although I do have to hand it to Musk and Tesla.
Tesla DOES suffer from hit and miss QC issues BUT they have overperformed in this area compared with other clean-sheet auto start-ups.

If I were in the market for a BEV I would ABSOLUTELY consider a gently used model for local ops.
My CFO wants to replace our roof before I retire.
I can't talk her into a metal one, UNFORTUNATELY, but we both agree that a grid-tie DIY solar install with a battery backup will happen after that.
This means that i will have to stick with gassers for a while.

 

i'd say high income, multiple vehicle owner, high intelligence. which category is that?

 

In China, EV purchase is price (govt subsidy) driven, with large concerns that charging stations will appear. In large cities this happens, But rural EV audience still sees petrol but not electron suppliers. In largest cities there are long waiting lists to license 'carbon burners" but not for EVs. This affects purchase choices a lot.

India is 10 or 15 years behind as always, with a huge future market. Africa and S. America are further behind

Someone else can talk about the European and American situations. They are large but smaller markets with interesting features.

Y'all want to talk about USA! transitioning. OK. Rest of world will enlarge its personal transportation vehicle fleet, and that may not attend as much to your feelings as you might anticipate.

 

How about “Lazy”?
I love the convenience, the lack of maintenance.

I love lots of aspects of EVs, but if I had to pick only one, it would be laziness/convenience.

When I got my first EV it would have been Altruist I suppose.
I believed in Tesla’s mission of speeding up the transition to renewable transportation/energy. And I wanted to help support that mission.

 

I would say world wide, the transition is happening because of government incentives and regulations, or at least happening faster than it would without them.

but it’s not a level playing field, as government incentives have been happening for fossil fuels for a long time.

Now the battle for technology between countries is slowing the transition down in the us

 

Rather evens things out, I'm thinking.

The "Modest" one.
"Smug" got taken in 2000 (some say 1999)

Expensive, and built to stay that way.
A large placard that says "No User Serviceable Parts Inside."

Actually if you're a 'high income earner' or at least qualify for the Dot.Gov kickbacks, you own a home, and you you don't have to haul stuff then BEVs are NOT that expensive in the long run - or at least they can be cheaper than petrol cars.

Friend @bwilson4web is doing the math, warts and all, and it's working for him.
I continue to be extremely surprised by the extraordinary depreciation for BEVs, but then I've never been foolish enough to think of a car as an 'investment.'
Still....it's a troubling development that might have a silver lining.

More BEVs will find their way into the driveways of a more diverse demographic, albeit those whose women are perhaps a little less strong, the menfolk somewhat less handsome, and the children......merely average.

 

I find the depreciation extremely predictable.
Any new tech will start expensive and get cheaper as production ramps up.
Add to that government rebates starting and you instantly take $7500 off the used prices.
And then add the ‘normal’ depreciation of driving a new car off the lot.

All that said, it is a pain point. However when viewed in context with lower initial pricing and rebates, it isn’t as bad as some would like you to believe.
And buying used gets you all those benefits without the steep depreciation.

 

I would think that with gas approaching $3 a gallon and budget crippling 'non volatile' everything else prices that used BEV depreciation would have started to stabilize out by now.
Especially in places that are not affected by longer and colder winters.

 

It would be interesting to plot EV prices, used EV prices and incentives against each other.

 

I’m still waiting for someone to point to these overly deprecated ev’s, and compare them to under depreciated gassers

 

I've done it in this forum - albeit with projected vice actual depreciation.

It's a moving target and there are several variables.
Gas is nearly $3 a gallon.
If price predictions come true three things will immediately start happening:

1. One political party will blame the other.
2. "I did that" stickers will start re-appearing on gas pumps and BEV owners will endear themselves to their gasser 'lessers.'
3. Both used and new BEVs and PHEVs will gain value.

I did a stare and compare of my 2023 GMC Sierra's projected depreciation against a post-kickback Tesla 3 base to base and MSRP to MSRP (source: KBB) and showed my math somewhere in this forum.
They were amazingly similar in 'take-home price' and I presumed that the insurance for the T3 wasn't 20-25% more.
IIRC they were within $1k in price.
The T3 slaughtered the GMC in operating costs, as one might fully expect but the deltas at the end of 5 years for curb price were astounding and I continue to be amazed at MSRP ++ pricing for some cars even in 2024.

Put another way.....
a 2012 wireless Prius was X
a 2012 Prius PIP was 'Y"
Nearly THE EXACT same car.
Which one had the steeper depreciation cure?

See Also:
2024 Wireless G5 and the 2024 Prime.

As I said before.
Some people should NOT try to shoehorn a BEV into their lives.
Other people shouldn't be driving anything else.

 

The severely reduced range and shortened battery life of an EV in extreme heat means we would be crazy to buy one out here in the Mohave Desert. 4 months out of the year we average over 100*F. Nights don't cool down enough to charge an EV properly.

Without the heat issue we would have considered an EV as a daily driver but we need a car that is going to be practical for long trips every year too. We have family and friends from coast-to-coast. We hope to drive the Prius and Camry for many more years. If the heat gets to the Prius we'll just use the Camry and become a one-car retired couple.

Or...

We'll replace the Prius with a cheap old 4x4 or AWD to get to the fishing spots along the Colorado River and Lake Mohave.

 

That and hyper commuters who use L3 (Fast DC Charging) or both....

NOTE:
The Climate Industrial Complex has already weighed in on L3 and battery degradation, and the current opinion from the collective is that "Fast charging has little impact on battery capacity, battery health, or long-term loss of vehicle range. Several "studies" have been conducted to look for a potential link between fast charging and battery degradation......"

HOWEVER (comma!) I'm thinking that this is under "ideal" conditions.......so caveat emptor (JUST like you would with gassers....)