EV acceptance is peaking

rruff

Explorer
The early praise of EV's is starting to tarnish.
That isn't how I read it. As plainly stated in the article, new tech and new car companies are going to have more QC issues. Low cost to own and operate, and outstanding performance (for most) were the praiseworthy attributes, and that hasn't changed.

And.... "Tesla, which has been building EVs for more than a decade, falls near the middle of the pack in terms of brand reliability. Its Model Y, first introduced for model year 2020, is recommended by CR for the first time this year, with owners reporting fewer issues with its suspension, in-car electronics and general build quality than in previous years. The Model Y joins the Model 3 in earning CR Recommended status.

“Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y are now the sweet spot in the automotive industry when it comes to building electric cars,” Fisher says. “While Tesla is still a relatively new car company, it has more experience producing EVs than any other automaker.”

For some reason the plug-in hybrids are a lot worse than full electrics, but regular hybrids are even more reliable than gas cars.
 

NevadaLover

Forking Icehole
Here's a quote from the report, hasn't been the story up to now.

"The survey reveals that, on average, EVs from the past three model years had 79 percent more problems than conventional cars. Based on owner responses on more than 330,000 vehicles, the survey covers 20 potential problem areas, including engine, transmission, electric motors, leaks, and infotainment systems."
 

rruff

Explorer
Here's a quote from the report, hasn't been the story up to now.
I don't recall "problems" with completely new car designs being part of the narrative at all. Heck, when an ICE with decades of history gets a few design tweaks, everyone expects more issues. EVs are on a whole different level.

Manufacturers have been twiddling their thumbs (or twiddling something...) until Tesla matured the design and infrastructure to the point where they couldn't ignore it. Then hype forced them to rush to market with whatever they could cobble together.

The reasons pickups are a great target to move to EV are threefold
.Trucks are a higher margin payoff for any car company in general
.emissions savings by taking v8 gas and diesel trucks is an attractive prospect and selling point
.easier to place a big, powerful skateboard batter under a truck than a small car
They are a poor choice because range has only recently become viable for cars. Trucks that are pulling trailers have <100mi range, which few owners would deem acceptable. That may be the case for a long time, unless there are some miracles coming for EV battery tech.

Where EVs would absolutely rule is short range tiny commuter cars. There aren't big profit potentials, which means all the players used to milking the same cows for as much as they possibly can will be dead set against it.
 

JaSAn

Grumpy Old Man
. . . For some reason the plug-in hybrids are a lot worse than full electrics, but regular hybrids are even more reliable than gas cars.
Could you link to any reports/studies that show that?

There is so much cow poop being thrown around on the subject of EV's that it is hard to draw conclusions.

In reality there just aren't enough EV's on the road to make any meaningful conclusions. EV's make up about 1% of the registered vehicles in the US (2.7M out of 288.5M). That's not enough for a good statistical sample.
 

calicamper

Expedition Leader
A whole bunch of people recently learned that very cold weather isn't conducive for getting
an EV charged.
As commodities prices rise so will battery prices.
Look what it cost to replace a battery on a used Tesla.
Hertz is off loading most of it's EC fleet.
That was definitely an issue with charger access in a region where most EV users didn’t have access to charging outside of a few public chargers. Ie old buildings, apartments etc. Cold weather paired with crap charging infrastructure. If you only had 1 gas station pump available for every 5000 cars the ICE cars would have been in the news also.
 

calicamper

Expedition Leader
Ford losing money on the Lightning is exactly what you'd expect of any new design. It takes a considerable amount of time and sales to recoup the investment in R&D, development, and production facilities. It's bean counting. If it never pays off, then Ford was stupid.

Tesla loses tons of money on the CyberTruck also...

Also... pickups are not the best application for EVs and it appears the hype got ahead or the tech for awhile.
Ford is loosing money on any product over 40k right now. COVID buyer hangover has hit all big ticket items.
 

Dougnuts

Well-known member
From an outsider's perspective I suggest that Ford's problem is just that..... Ford's problem. They were late in the game and not doing it well. It is not an EV problem.

Ford was late to the game compared to who? They were the second truck to the market and the Mach-E has been out for just over 3 years now.
 

plh

Explorer
I consider myself a tech early adopter, and have owned a PHEV for 5 years. I would not own a pure EV for these 3 reasons: 1. Cold weather range reduction 2. Long charge time 3. High depreciation 4. Elon Musk (he influences the entire EV market unfortunately)
 

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