Confused about PHEV, Hybrids, etc...

[nctnico]

Think about it this way,  if say the average CA car is $40,000 and lasts 15 years and does the average of 12k miles per year, then per mile depreciation alone is 22 cents per mile (that's more than nct's quoted cost on depreciation alone, but this is a new car.)

The average car in the US is 12.2 years old. (I think, but am not sure, that this is the average of registered cars.) Given that CA is one of the better climates for car longevity, I think it's far to estimate that cars last quite a bit longer than 15 years, likely bringing the figure you calculate down to $0.12-15.

Indeed. Cars don't get scrapped after 12 years but sold to a new owner. Typically cars get exported to drive around for another 15 to 20 years in a different country (or in case of the US: maybe a different state).

You'd have to look at the age distribution for the cars in order to draw any meaningfull conclusions. Likely a lot of cars leave the market to be exported at a relatively young age but that also means that such cars have not devalued to 0.

[Bassman59]

Who the hell is driving around in a 5-ton vehicle today?!

Well it isn't 5 tons, but a Tesla Model X has a GVWR of over 6700lbs and qualifies for a significant tax credit (Section 179) for being over 3 tons.

Also in the "not 5 tons but ..." category are all of the big pickup trucks and SUVs I see around here. F250, Silverado, etc can all easily weigh in at 6000 lbs.

[gnuarm]

Indeed. Cars don't get scrapped after 12 years but sold to a new owner. Typically cars get exported to drive around for another 15 to 20 years in a different country (or in case of the US: maybe a different state).

You'd have to look at the age distribution for the cars in order to draw any meaningfull conclusions. Likely a lot of cars leave the market to be exported at a relatively young age but that also means that such cars have not devalued to 0.

I haven't followed this to know the context exactly, but as BEVs progress, the cost advantages will become more pronounced.  With the difference in operating costs, it will become advantageous to scrap ICE vehicles before their "use by" date has expired.  In 10 years, virtually all cars sold will be BEVs.  Over the course of another 10 years, we won't see very many ICE left on the roads.  There may remain a few diehards who want to drive for 12 hours with no breaks (the only use case where ICE has an advantage) and insist ICE is the only answer, the 1%.  The life expectancy of ICE vehicles will be dramatically reduced.

The rest of us will happily drive BEVs and not worry about the obsolete junkers we used to drive.

[sokoloff]

I will be shocked if in 10 years 50% of new cars sold are pure BEVs. In fact, I’ll take that bet, specifically for US new car sales.

I have one BEV (a 2015 LEAF) and one ICE (2005 CR-V) as daily drivers. Rust will kill the CR-V before other economics will and I expect to replace it with something around 6-8 years old and with an ICE (perhaps a PHEV) when that time comes and expect they will be economical to keep running come 2032.

[EEVblog]

I will be shocked if in 10 years 50% of new cars sold are pure BEVs. In fact, I’ll take that bet, specifically for US new car sales.

I'll take that bet too, and I'm as pro-EV as they come.
The reality has already hit the EV industry head on. Batteries have not plummeted in price like predicted, even with all the Gigafactory hype, and I don't see this changing much this decade. Certainly not by the half order of magnitude drop in price required, not to mention production capability.

[bdunham7]

With the difference in operating costs, it will become advantageous to scrap ICE vehicles before their "use by" date has expired.  In 10 years, virtually all cars sold will be BEVs.  Over the course of another 10 years, we won't see very many ICE left on the roads.  There may remain a few diehards who want to drive for 12 hours with no breaks (the only use case where ICE has an advantage) and insist ICE is the only answer, the 1%.  The life expectancy of ICE vehicles will be dramatically reduced.

Some bold predictions there.  But aside from the obvious argument that capital costs generally outweigh running costs for the typical car buyer, I think you might want to have a look at what cars are actually being scrapped currently (for reasons other than being totaled in collisions).  For many BEVs, a failed battery is the end of the road.  For many ICEs, the same may be true for transmissions, but that usually applies to much older and less valuable models. 

[gnuarm]

I will be shocked if in 10 years 50% of new cars sold are pure BEVs. In fact, I’ll take that bet, specifically for US new car sales.

It's the US and the EU where this is most likely.  BEVs still have a sticker price penalty, which the more affluent can afford.  The battery is expensive enough that it's presently hard to make a low end BEV.  But that will improve.  Remember Moore's Law?  Still going strong after how many years?  Same thing with batteries.  As the number of BEVs sold increases, the more money will be poured into battery research.

I have one BEV (a 2015 LEAF) and one ICE (2005 CR-V) as daily drivers. Rust will kill the CR-V before other economics will and I expect to replace it with something around 6-8 years old and with an ICE (perhaps a PHEV) when that time comes and expect they will be economical to keep running come 2032.

Maybe in 2032 you can still run an ICE, but by 2040 gasoline will be hard to come by.  The distribution channels require constant use and with less than 5% of the cars on the road being ICE, gas will be hard to find.   Gas stations will close and you will have to buy gas in special places, industrial parks and maybe airports. 

Gasoline will end up in the same position hydrogen is now, no real infrastructure to support it.   

[gnuarm]

I will be shocked if in 10 years 50% of new cars sold are pure BEVs. In fact, I’ll take that bet, specifically for US new car sales.

I'll take that bet too, and I'm as pro-EV as they come.
The reality has already hit the EV industry head on. Batteries have not plummeted in price like predicted, even with all the Gigafactory hype, and I don't see this changing much this decade. Certainly not by the half order of magnitude drop in price required, not to mention production capability.

"plummeted in price like predicted"

Pure nonsense.  Who predicted that?  This is like the climate change denialists who tout the claims of the "world ending" in 10 years.  No one who is credible has said that. 

If you believe in basic math, you will be able to take the numbers for the last several years and see the >50% annual growth in sales.  Project that forward and you will see that in 10 years nearly all new cars sold will be BEVs. 

In 2018, literally every car company in the world started scrambling to produce new BEV models after seeing the success of the Tesla model 3.  A car that continues to have a year long order backlog even after raising the introductory price from the $30s to the $40s.  The Ford and other offerings have similar backlogs. 

The only possible monkey wrench I see is the possibility of raw materials, such as lithium, limiting production rates.  I expect most BEV companies are working on this hard.  I believe GM has said they have it covered until 2025, but that's only three years, so I'm a bit worried. 

It may turn out that with lithium, "We're gonna need a bigger boat!"

[bdunham7]

But that will improve.  Remember Moore's Law?  Still going strong after how many years?  Same thing with batteries. 

No, Moore's Law doesn't apply to everything, sometimes there are hard limits.  It doesn't even apply to semiconductors anymore as reality has been lagging the (thrice revised b/t/w) 'Law' of doubling density every two years.  Remember the Concorde SST?  Well, it turned out that supersonic travel continued to be prohibitively difficult and expensive, so we're pretty much stuck going about the same speed as the original 707.  There has been tremendous effort put into battery technology for decades what we've achieved is what we have.  Double the power density at half the cost?  That will take a miraculous breakthrough.  Will it happen?  IDK, but it ain't no sure thing. 

[bdunham7]

If you believe in basic math, you will be able to take the numbers for the last several years and see the >50% annual growth in sales.  Project that forward and you will see that in 10 years nearly all new cars sold will be BEVs.

Project it forward another 10 years and every person on the planet will have 42 BEVs.  Or something on that order.  Math is tricky like that.  Don't be an economist, use math wisely!

[gnuarm]

But that will improve.  Remember Moore's Law?  Still going strong after how many years?  Same thing with batteries. 

No, Moore's Law doesn't apply to everything, sometimes there are hard limits.  It doesn't even apply to semiconductors anymore as reality has been lagging the (thrice revised b/t/w) 'Law' of doubling density every two years.  Remember the Concorde SST?  Well, it turned out that supersonic travel continued to be prohibitively difficult and expensive, so we're pretty much stuck going about the same speed as the original 707.  There has been tremendous effort put into battery technology for decades what we've achieved is what we have.  Double the power density at half the cost?  That will take a miraculous breakthrough.  Will it happen?  IDK, but it ain't no sure thing.

Not sure why you are bringing the Concord into it.  That had totally different economics which mostly depended on the wealthy being willing to pay triple the price to cut their flight time in half.

The point of mentioning Moore's law is about the improvements in manufacturing continue to this day.  There's a similar rule that as you increase production a factor of 10, the costs are cut by a factor of 2.  We will be seeing a tenfold increase in BEV battery production over the next 10 years which will drop the costs dramatically. 

We've seen this with virtually everything in mass production, such as LCD TVs, solar cells and many other things.  There is zero reason why this won't apply to batteries.  The efforts we've made in battery technology have been trivial in comparison, because there is so much more money involved at this point.  $50 per phone vs. $10,000+ per car... no contest.  Money is being poured into battery research by companies who never had an interest or knowledge, like oil companies.  Yeah, I was told recently that the big oil companies are spending boatloads of money on battery research! 

[gnuarm]

If you believe in basic math, you will be able to take the numbers for the last several years and see the >50% annual growth in sales.  Project that forward and you will see that in 10 years nearly all new cars sold will be BEVs.

Project it forward another 10 years and every person on the planet will have 42 BEVs.  Or something on that order.  Math is tricky like that.  Don't be an economist, use math wisely!

No, math is not tricky, just people.

[EEVblog]

The only possible monkey wrench I see is the possibility of raw materials, such as lithium, limiting production rates.

Bingo. Throw in home and grid storage demand and your supply problems get harder.

[tom66]

The VW ID.3 comes with a 58kWh battery and outside of chip shortage times you could get one for 26,000 EUR.  It's nearly the same capacity battery that one of the variants of the Model S offered.

The Nissan Leaf had a 24kWh battery, smaller motor, worse build quality and cost more than 26,000 EUR new, 8 years ago. 

It's madness to say battery prices haven't fallen. 

That said, will they fall so far that a 10,000 EUR econobox with a 40kWh battery is practical?  Possibly not.  That segment of the market may just disappear.

[EEVblog]

The VW ID.3 comes with a 58kWh battery and outside of chip shortage times you could get one for 26,000 EUR.  It's nearly the same capacity battery that one of the variants of the Model S offered.
The Nissan Leaf had a 24kWh battery, smaller motor, worse build quality and cost more than 26,000 EUR new, 8 years ago. 
It's madness to say battery prices haven't fallen. 

Don't forget the government subsidies.
Yes they have fallen, but not as dramatically as required to make EV's closer to parity with ICE cars. A new small ICE car in the Uk still costs half that.
And market forces are currently driving battery prices back up.

[tom66]

Don't forget the government subsidies.
Yes they have fallen, but not as dramatically as required to make EV's closer to parity with ICE cars. A new small ICE car in the Uk still costs half that.
And market forces are currently driving battery prices back up.

The Leaf had a larger subsidy - IIRC about £6k in the UK when it came out.   The ID.3 has no grant at all any more, though when it first launched it qualified for up to £3.5k grant.

The ID.3 is best compared to a Golf - it costs about £10k more than the equivalent Golf - which is a lot, don't get me wrong.  Batteries still aren't *cheap*, but they definitely have fallen substantially.

[EEVblog]

Batteries still aren't *cheap*, but they definitely have fallen substantially.

Of course they have, there is a big market for them now.
But have not, and probaly will not drop enough for Joe Average to think EV's a no-brainer compared to their ICE car.
Not to mention that EV's simply aren't practically suitable to a large percentage of the population. And I don't see that changing either until you can get a large range at a cheap price AND the ability to recharge in a few minutes.

[Someone]

Not to mention that EV's simply aren't practically suitable to a large percentage of the population.

Except that is from the mindset of like for like replacement (and the often repeated even on here "My car is my car and I won't use different vehicles on different days") yet the majority of households have multiple cars and the vast majority of those can swap out one of their cars without any practical impact.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/what-if-one-your-cars-was-electric
The low hanging fruit is already a huge market, and likely the majority of households.

[tom66]

Not to mention a proper car sharing infrastructure would eliminate a lot of that anxiety.

VW had/have a scheme where if you want to go on a really long trip and you have an EV you can rent a dirty diesel from them - and I think 1 week's rental per year of lease is free.

But I guess it's the same reason people drive big SUVs.  They want a car for that 1% of the time when they go to the airport, or on a long road trip etc,  but most of the time they use it to commute to work and back or get shopping etc with one or two passengers.   And it's really a waste of resources because it's *hard* to share a car.  Improving that is really important. 

[Miyuki]

Current Lithium based batteries practically hit the raw material cost so they won't be significantly cheaper. Rather might even go a little up.
Maybe Sodium based ones in 10 or so years, can offer a solution, but who knows.

And when I look at the price of BEVs without subsidy it is not nice
Volkswagen ID.3 58kWh current price 48-50k €
Nissan Leaf 39kWh 35k € for the cheapest model and 59kW starts at 43k €
Hyundai IONIQ 5 58 kWh starts at 47k €
Kia EV6 58kWh starts at 52k €

Those are not affordable cars for the average Joe

[tom66]

The price of all cars is crazy inflated right now due to Chipageddon, high natural gas prices, supply chain issues etc.  The lead time for an ID.4 for instance is 14 months.    

On that basis I don't think you can look at the price of any of these right now and draw conclusion about the long term price stability.  Li-ion batteries are under $150/kWh so even a 58kWh pack is less than $10k in cell cost:  this is a small factor of overall vehicle price (for 50kEUR car!!)

[tszaboo]

Current Lithium based batteries practically hit the raw material cost so they won't be significantly cheaper. Rather might even go a little up.
Maybe Sodium based ones in 10 or so years, can offer a solution, but who knows.

And when I look at the price of BEVs without subsidy it is not nice
Volkswagen ID.3 58kWh current price 48-50k €
Nissan Leaf 39kWh 35k € for the cheapest model and 59kW starts at 43k €
Hyundai IONIQ 5 58 kWh starts at 47k €
Kia EV6 58kWh starts at 52k €

Those are not affordable cars for the average Joe

The solid state li-ion is supposed to drop the price of the cells by half. And integration and electronics will be cheaper, as they could use higher voltage battery packs, like lead acid, without cell balancing.
But even used car prices went up like 30% in the past 1-1.5 years. I could sell my car for almost the same amount (80% let's say)than I bought it used 5 years ago.

[EEVblog]

Not to mention a proper car sharing infrastructure would eliminate a lot of that anxiety.

VW had/have a scheme where if you want to go on a really long trip and you have an EV you can rent a dirty diesel from them - and I think 1 week's rental per year of lease is free.

But I guess it's the same reason people drive big SUVs.  They want a car for that 1% of the time when they go to the airport, or on a long road trip etc,  but most of the time they use it to commute to work and back or get shopping etc with one or two passengers.   And it's really a waste of resources because it's *hard* to share a car.  Improving that is really important.

“You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.”
The WEF just came out recently and said they won't want you to own a car.
Yeah, nah.

[pcprogrammer]

“You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.”

The richest people in the world must be very unhappy then

The WEF just came out recently and said they won't want you to own a car.
Yeah, nah.

Is this coming from Klaus Schwab? I have heard some conspiracy talk about the "great reset" where a 4th industrial revolution has to come and create a more sustainable and green economy and governments get total control over you by granting and taking away social security privileges. No idea what is true here and don't want to read the book Klaus Schwab wrote.

But keeping the people happy won't come from them owning nothing and being controlled to the last breath they take. See what happened during covid when the governments turned on the screws. People where not happy

[sokoloff]

Not to mention a proper car sharing infrastructure would eliminate a lot of that anxiety.

VW had/have a scheme where if you want to go on a really long trip and you have an EV you can rent a dirty diesel from them - and I think 1 week's rental per year of lease is free.

But I guess it's the same reason people drive big SUVs.  They want a car for that 1% of the time when they go to the airport, or on a long road trip etc,  but most of the time they use it to commute to work and back or get shopping etc with one or two passengers.   And it's really a waste of resources because it's *hard* to share a car.  Improving that is really important.

It sure is hard to share a car.

Part of the reason that it's hard to share a long-range car that people might want for 2 weeks out of 52 is that a lot of people will want that car around the same time (summer holidays and Christmas trips). I don't think there's any amount of demand management that's going to make people happy to make their winter family visit on the 4th week in January instead of over Christmas and New Years.