EEVblog #1337 - I Bought An Electric Car

[Ed.Kloonk]

In the example above, buy a reliable 10k car and keep the extra $40k.

Totes. And it makes perfect sense to us. 40 grand can buy alot of new motors, gearboxes diffs etc.

But I think everyone is missing the point. Young people are not only mechanically ill-inclined, there are many grads and under grads who feel that acquiring a car with problems and having to work on it to get it ship-shape is beneath them.

[Fungus]

Only buy the car that you can afford to pay cash for.
In the example above, buy a reliable 10k car and keep the extra $40k.

QFT.

[nctnico]

I'm not quite convinced that cash up front has quite such a significant discount. Maybe if you are personally negotiating it with the dealership. Anyway I just wanted to point out better value financing can be had direct from OEMs/dealerships. After all, they make money from the car sale itself and don't have to make money from charging interest and fees as dedicated loan providers do.

That is where you are severely wrong! Car dealers aren't banks; the loans are outsourced to banks and they won't settle for a low interest rate. So the dealer has to make the profit from the car. Probably the dealer gets a kickback fee from the bank as well but guess who pays that... you!

You know these large OEMs are their own banks right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Capital

Nope, it's StGeorge bank:

nctnico is right, you will pay for that, usually by not getting as good a discount as you can with cash. And doesn't include fees and changes.
So take a $50,000 ticket price car.
For cash you can pay say $46k and you are done.
For credit you'll pay maybe $49k (so you feel good you are getting some discount) and you pay at least a 1.5% comparison rate on $40k, so $500/year interest at least, that's $2k, plus fees and changes let's assume another $1k. So you've paid say $52k vs $46k, or $6k more than cash.

And if you have financial problems then you can't just sell the car because you don't own it, and you are still on the hook for the repayments.
But if you paid cash for the car, not only do you save a big chunk of cash, you can sell the car because you own it and can immediately recoup some cash.

Maybe the situation is different in Australia, or with different makes (I have only bought new Japanese makes that are known for not really negotiating much on price) but that has not been the case in my experience in Canada. Most dealers aren't really willing to give anything meaningful in the way of discounts whether you are paying cash or using financing. If there's a difference, it's small. There's a complicated relationship between the car maker and the dealership that I don't fully understand, but I believe the cheap credit is financed by the make, *not* the dealer, while any cash discounts they give you come directly out of the dealer's profit margin.

And your math ignores the time value of the money you don't have tied up in the car. Let's say you have $50k in cash on hand, and you draw from it to pay off the loan, so this is a self contained system.

If you pay cash, it's simple, the car costs you the $46k you claim you can negotiate it down to, you invest the remaining $4k for the 7 years at an achievable 5%, and end up with $4749.

If you finance and instead put the $50k in investments, 49k @ 1.5% over 7 years results in a monthly payment of $647.45. If you plug this into a 'savings calculator with regular withdrawals', and a compound interest of 5%, simulating investing this money at 5% and then drawing it down to pay the loan, we find a future value of $5673. This is considerably more than the $4749 you would be left with paying cash, despite the lower cash price.

Actually, the term of the loan Dave is writing about is 4 years, not 7. Finding an investment which pays 5% guaranteed in 4 years will be hard. If it existed, the banks wouldn't loan money at 1.5% interest rate to people to buy cars but go for the 5% themselves. On the very long term you can do better than 5% but then you are talking about periods >10 years during which there will be a period where the worth of the fund will be lower than the amount you have invested.

PS: sorry for quoting so much text but I wanted to preserve the context.

[Fungus]

Actually, the term of the loan Dave is writing about is 4 years, not 7. Finding an investment which pays 5% guaranteed in 4 years will be hard. If it existed, the banks wouldn't loan money at 1.5% interest rate to people to buy cars but go for the 5% themselves. On the very long term you can do better than 5% but then you are talking about periods >10 years during which there will be a period where the worth of the fund will be lower than the amount you have invested.

My stock market portfolio that I created last October is is up 25% so far.

(Yeah, COVID, etc.)

Bank failure is a big deal. Banks are highly regulated over what they're allowed to do with other people's money, they need to be able to pay back all money in people's accounts at a moment's notice. A big dip in any "investment" like the stock market could wipe them out.

As a private investor you have an extremely high chance of earning more than 1.5% over five years. The stock market has maintained average 10% gains ever since it was created. If you own a diverse portfolio then that's pretty much what you'll get.

[nctnico]

As a private investor you have an extremely high chance of earning more than 1.5% over five years. The stock market has maintained average 10% gains ever since it was created. If you own a diverse portfolio then that's pretty much what you'll get.

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. A long time ago I worked at a stock broker and the first thing I noticed is that is takes quite a bit of effort and use of derivatives, loans and other investment types that mere mortals don't even have access to in order to get a good risk spread. And even then an event like Covid or the credit crunch can (temporarily) undo all the gains from the years before. That is also a likely moment you need your money to be untied from the investment. All in all not a very good idea.

[SilverSolder]

As a private investor you have an extremely high chance of earning more than 1.5% over five years. The stock market has maintained average 10% gains ever since it was created. If you own a diverse portfolio then that's pretty much what you'll get.

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. A long time ago I worked at a stock broker and the first thing I noticed is that is takes quite a bit of effort and use of derivatives, loans and other investment types that mere mortals don't even have access to in order to get a good risk spread. And even then an event like Covid or the credit crunch can (temporarily) undo all the gains from the years before. That is also a likely moment you need your money to be untied from the investment. All in all not a very good idea.

You should be in a mixture of stocks, bonds, and cash (and possibly real estate).   If you are 100% in any one asset class, you are either a genius or doing something wrong! 

[nctnico]

As a private investor you have an extremely high chance of earning more than 1.5% over five years. The stock market has maintained average 10% gains ever since it was created. If you own a diverse portfolio then that's pretty much what you'll get.

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. A long time ago I worked at a stock broker and the first thing I noticed is that is takes quite a bit of effort and use of derivatives, loans and other investment types that mere mortals don't even have access to in order to get a good risk spread. And even then an event like Covid or the credit crunch can (temporarily) undo all the gains from the years before. That is also a likely moment you need your money to be untied from the investment. All in all not a very good idea.

You should be in a mixture of stocks, bonds, and cash (and possibly real estate).   If you are 100% in any one asset class, you are either a genius or doing something wrong! 

That is what I was trying to explain People making huge profits like to show off but for every one of them there are a couple of thousand who lost.

[timelessbeing]

looks like Toyota is investing heavily into this technology

[f4eru]

H2 in a car makes no sense whatsoever, except to rake in subventions bucks for research.
This is why Toyota i just a walking zombie company. Already dead.

[NiHaoMike]

H2 in a car makes no sense whatsoever, except to rake in subventions bucks for research.
This is why Toyota i just a walking zombie company. Already dead.

Could be an option for long distance, but building the infrastructure is an uphill battle. I think biofuels would be the better choice given current technology.

[f4eru]

Biofuels are just as crap as H2.

[coppice]

Biofuels are just as crap as H2.

Biofuels have many serious problems, but at least liquids are trivial to store and transport.

[EEVblog]

H2 in a car makes no sense whatsoever, except to rake in subventions bucks for research.

It's a very safe bet that hydrogen will never be mainstream for cars. Maybe some niche in some area of the transport market, but Joe Average driving one, nope, doomed to failure.

[NiHaoMike]

Biofuels are just as crap as H2.

As currently implemented, perhaps, but there's plenty of easy ways that can be improved. For example, ethanol from sugarcane gets a far higher yield than ethanol from corn. Biofuel crops can also be planted on land that otherwise would not be doing anything productive, for example front and back yards.

[nctnico]

Biofuels are just as crap as H2.

As currently implemented, perhaps, but there's plenty of easy ways that can be improved. For example, ethanol from sugarcane gets a far higher yield than ethanol from corn. Biofuel crops can also be planted on land that otherwise would not be doing anything productive, for example front and back yards.

The future are biofuels from agricultural and other plant based residus, not crop based biofuels.

And I wouldn't go around claiming that H2 isn't going to make it. Toyota still goes ahead with it and if you look at the facts you'll see that Toyota has been consistently improving their cars to be both healthier (less NOx) and have a lower CO2 footprint (and less SO2 output). Unlike other car companies they didn't participate in a cartel to make the emissions from their cars just good enough to pass regulations, Toyota does not need to sell BEVs to compensate for CO2 emissions, they have stopped selling diesels in Europe a long time ago and all the models they produce themselves are available as hybrids. People where laughing at the Prius 20+ years ago and the same people are laughing at the Mirai today. I'm pretty sure Toyota has run the numbers to optimise their profits long term. Germany is pretty far along with rolling out a hydrogen network. If I run the numbers for my situation, a car on hydrogen would be way cheaper for me to run compared to electric. A BEV makes no financial sense to me at all; public charging is simply too expensive (almost double the cost compared to fueling a hybrid). They probably figured that out at Toyota as well; charging a BEV is too expensive for a large number of people where hydrogen is not.

[mikeselectricstuff]

If I run the numbers for my situation, a car on hydrogen would be way cheaper for me to run compared to electric. A BEV makes no financial sense to me at all; public charging is simply too expensive (almost double the cost compared to fueling a hybrid). They probably figured that out at Toyota as well; charging a BEV is too expensive for a large number of people where hydrogen is not.

That would only be the case for people who can't charge at home. Cars have to be parked somewhere, and providing charging in those places is going to be cheaper than building hydrogen infrastructure.

Even if all hydrogen comes from renewables, it's still a fraction of the efficiency of BEV.
https://insideevs.com/news/332584/efficiency-compared-battery-electric-73-hydrogen-22-ice-13/

[nctnico]

If I run the numbers for my situation, a car on hydrogen would be way cheaper for me to run compared to electric. A BEV makes no financial sense to me at all; public charging is simply too expensive (almost double the cost compared to fueling a hybrid). They probably figured that out at Toyota as well; charging a BEV is too expensive for a large number of people where hydrogen is not.

That would only be the case for people who can't charge at home. Cars have to be parked somewhere, and providing charging in those places is going to be cheaper than building hydrogen infrastructure.

Charging 'at home' still needs public charging if the car is parked on the street. I'll get a 259 euro fine if I put an externsion cord over the sidewalk. The city does this to avoid people from creating dangerous situations. I already wrote that that would happen a long time ago and people here wouldn't believe it but now it is happening for real.

And ask yourself why nobody has an oil drum at home with gas to fill the car... it is because it is cheaper to bring the car to the gas station than having a big truck coming to your home and fill your oil drum every once in a while. That oil drum will also need certification and maintenance. A public charging point isn't any different. The Dutch government estimates that about 1 charging point is needed for every 2 or 3 cars if all cars are BEVs. That is extremely inefficient from a maintenance point of view. My conservative estimation is that a public (slow) charging point  costs 500 to 1000 euro per year to install, maintain and have a grid connection for a period of 10 years. That money has to come from somewhere. Current prices are around 0.4 euro per kWh but none of the companies installing the charging points are making a profit.

Hydrogen OTOH can be dispensed quickly at centralised places (AKA gas stations) which allow for a much more efficient sharing of resources. The same however will be true for BEVs once batteries have evolved one or two generations which allow fast charging and have much higher energy densities. In that respect Toyota seems to wanting to skip the current crop of  batteries and go straight for solid state.

Even if all hydrogen comes from renewables, it's still a fraction of the efficiency of BEV.
https://insideevs.com/news/332584/efficiency-compared-battery-electric-73-hydrogen-22-ice-13/

Efficiency doesn't matter at all. Only cost. Higher efficiency doesn't translate to lower cost by definition. In the end the only thing that matters to me is price per distance travelled. And from that perspective hydrogen is cheaper for me.

[coppice]

Charging 'at home' still needs public charging if the car is parked on the street. I'll get a 259 euro fine if I put an externsion cord over the sidewalk. The city does this to avoid people from creating dangerous situations. I already wrote that that would happen a long time ago and people here wouldn't believe it but now it is happening for real.

Lots of people have written about this, including me in this forum. It represents a substantial infrastructure issue, because such a huge number of cars are always parked outside a home, with a sidewalk in the way. It can be handled, though. It just needs some changes to regulations. If every home with a driveway can get the sidewalk modified to provide a ramp up to that driveway, with full regulatory approval, I'm sure we can regulate to allow compliant charging posts outside each house. Its going to cost billions, though.

[EEVblog]

If I run the numbers for my situation, a car on hydrogen would be way cheaper for me to run compared to electric. A BEV makes no financial sense to me at all; public charging is simply too expensive (almost double the cost compared to fueling a hybrid). They probably figured that out at Toyota as well; charging a BEV is too expensive for a large number of people where hydrogen is not.

That would only be the case for people who can't charge at home. Cars have to be parked somewhere, and providing charging in those places is going to be cheaper than building hydrogen infrastructure.

Charging 'at home' still needs public charging if the car is parked on the street.

Yes, EV's are at present really only a solution for those who can charge at home or work. If you can't do either of those then it's not very practical unless you want to spend 30-60 minutes at a charging station every week vs <3 minutes for an ICE car.

[EEVblog]

If I run the numbers for my situation, a car on hydrogen would be way cheaper for me to run compared to electric. A BEV makes no financial sense to me at all; public charging is simply too expensive (almost double the cost compared to fueling a hybrid). They probably figured that out at Toyota as well; charging a BEV is too expensive for a large number of people where hydrogen is not.

That would only be the case for people who can't charge at home. Cars have to be parked somewhere, and providing charging in those places is going to be cheaper than building hydrogen infrastructure.
Even if all hydrogen comes from renewables, it's still a fraction of the efficiency of BEV.
https://insideevs.com/news/332584/efficiency-compared-battery-electric-73-hydrogen-22-ice-13/

Hydrogen can be made to work technically, but practically it's a mess. The problem is adoption. EV's can be charged at home with no additional infrastructure. I've had an EV for a year now and done 15,000km in it. I have only seriously needed to charge it twice at a public outlet, and one of those times was an impromptu trip that wasn't needed.
I don't know the number of people that have charge facilities at home and/or work, but let's assume it's half the population. EV's are instantly a win for something like half the population.
The rest of the population already has an ICE car and the massive infrastructure required to fuel them.
Starting from scrtch with hydrogen cars is just a complete non-starter for most of the population. What benefit is there over ICE that people genuinely care enough about to sacrifice practicality?

[james_s]

Hydrogen is dead, it's a pipe dream from the 1990s, it buys me nothing over just continuing to use gasoline. I still have to go out and hunt for a place to buy fuel and that's the part I hate the most about driving a car. Not only that, I have to go hunt for one of the few and far between places that sells hydrogen, and they are never going to be widespread because electric already won a decade ago. A hydrogen car is EV prices without any of the benefits.

If you look among the people who own cars and drive them the most that is the people who live in the suburbs. Almost all of those who live in a house can already charge in their garage/carport/driveway, that is the primary market for EVs. Apartments and condos are next, more and more they will have charging available in the parking lots. Even urban situations where people park on the street this is totally solvable, mini-chargers installed along the curb or on light poles, but we don't really have to worry about those people right now, ICE cars are not going anywhere any time soon, most people who can't easily charge at home can keep driving those instead.

[james_s]

Lots of people have written about this, including me in this forum. It represents a substantial infrastructure issue, because such a huge number of cars are always parked outside a home, with a sidewalk in the way. It can be handled, though. It just needs some changes to regulations. If every home with a driveway can get the sidewalk modified to provide a ramp up to that driveway, with full regulatory approval, I'm sure we can regulate to allow compliant charging posts outside each house. Its going to cost billions, though.

Just allow each homeowner who wants one to install one. It doesn't even have to be a hardwired charger, a pipe embedded in the sidewalk that they can run an extension cord through would suffice. Or a conduit to their house feeding a receptacle in a little locked box on the curb. Individual homeowners who need one can have it installed at their own expense and those that don't need it don't need to pay for it.

[EEVblog]

Just allow each homeowner who wants one to install one. It doesn't even have to be a hardwired charger, a pipe embedded in the sidewalk that they can run an extension cord through would suffice. Or a conduit to their house feeding a receptacle in a little locked box on the curb. Individual homeowners who need one can have it installed at their own expense and those that don't need it don't need to pay for it.

There is a huge niche market there for those installers. Offer a turn-key compliant solution. The trick is the compliant part.
Technically, here the sidewalk would be the domain of the local council.

[james_s]

There is a huge niche market there for those installers. Offer a turn-key compliant solution. The trick is the compliant part.
Technically, here the sidewalk would be the domain of the local council.

That's true in most places I think, but that is solvable. The buried utilities to my house pass through my property in an area that a utility easement, technically it's my property but I don't own the infrastructure that is buried there and if they need to come on my property and dig it up they can. There is no reason the regulations can't be changed to create a similar sort of easement on the public sidewalk, I don't own the sidewalk or the curb but I could reasonably be permitted to install a charging box on it. The rules can be changed at any time to meet the present day needs of the population.

Even simpler, allow a person to install a charging box on the edge of their property and use a flat cable that can lay across the sidewalk, or cut slots in the sidewalk just wide enough for a cable to lay in so nobody trips over it. Doesn't need to be more than about 15mm wide and maybe 20mm deep

[nctnico]

If I run the numbers for my situation, a car on hydrogen would be way cheaper for me to run compared to electric. A BEV makes no financial sense to me at all; public charging is simply too expensive (almost double the cost compared to fueling a hybrid). They probably figured that out at Toyota as well; charging a BEV is too expensive for a large number of people where hydrogen is not.

That would only be the case for people who can't charge at home. Cars have to be parked somewhere, and providing charging in those places is going to be cheaper than building hydrogen infrastructure.
Even if all hydrogen comes from renewables, it's still a fraction of the efficiency of BEV.
https://insideevs.com/news/332584/efficiency-compared-battery-electric-73-hydrogen-22-ice-13/

Hydrogen can be made to work technically, but practically it's a mess. The problem is adoption. EV's can be charged at home with no additional infrastructure. I've had an EV for a year now and done 15,000km in it. I have only seriously needed to charge it twice at a public outlet, and one of those times was an impromptu trip that wasn't needed.
I don't know the number of people that have charge facilities at home and/or work, but let's assume it's half the population. EV's are instantly a win for something like half the population.

According to Fasned (a Dutch company exploiting super chargers): In the NL 70% of the households can't charge from their own outlet. Inside cities this number rises to 90%.

The rest of the population already has an ICE car and the massive infrastructure required to fuel them.
Starting from scrtch with hydrogen cars is just a complete non-starter for most of the population. What benefit is there over ICE that people genuinely care enough about to sacrifice practicality?

15 years ago people where asking the same question about BEVs and yet here they are. What won't be going away any time soon is the impracticality of needing long charge times and high costs once you want to use a BEV on a long trip. And that is exactly why hydrogen is cheaper AND more practical for my situation. There are plans to ban ICEs alltogether in the EU (seeing is believing though) and that could drive a switch to hydrogen for many. And there are several other factors at play as well which are not just technical but also political. Just an example: a company installing charging points may not even get a permit to install a charging in front of my home due to zoning regulations. In some Dutch cities the city counsil has already stated that they don't want streets to become littered with charging points. The bottom line is that it is way to early to say hydrogen is dead. According to KPMG in their annual report on the automotive industry (which is based on what experts and consumers say), hydrogen cars and BEVs will be sold in equal numbers (same order of magnitude) in a couple of decades. Partly due to consumers wanting hydrogen cars.