“/The things that we like about EVs - the smoothness, the silence, the instant torque, zero emissions, "refuel" at home - just don't seem to be all that important to most people. Besides, in the last 20-30 years, ICEVs have gotten better at a lot of these things./”
They sure have! Ice powered vehicles today are very reliable, quiet, and powerful compared to a few decades ago. If maintained properly they can remain in service for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles. You can purchase a used one with 30k miles on it for less than half the new cost and expect to drive it for at least 100k miles relatively trouble free. That is very hard for today’s EVs to compete with. I don’t expect the market for EVs to increase much until they can offer similar performance and price. “/They shouldn't lose on cost, but most buyers don't think long-term and see only the up-front cost./” That is very much my experience. Solar panels are a great example. I live in an area that historically has had around 200 sunny days a year. Solar panel cost has dropped to less than ¼ what I paid in 2008, making return on investment very short here. For years I’ve had people remark that I am “lucky” that I don’t have to buy fuel, to which I respond that I just paid up front, they could do the same. But they look only at up-front costs, and can’t get themselves to spend that money even though they could afford it and the investment would pay for itself in less than 10 years. Those same people will purchase the most expensive new car they can afford, an "investment" that will depreciate quickly, but that they will derive more pleasure and status from. I think that is a big part of Tesla's success, a sexy, cool, high status car. But that is for the people who have the discretionary spending. Most here don't. For them its a "no-brainer" to buy that used ice car and drive it for more than 100k miles rather than a more expensive EV that has limited range and requires purchase of an EVSE. -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/Re-EVLN-Open-Source-Street-Legal-affordable-long-range-EV-4the-masses-tp4675590p4675788.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
