The USA is becoming a weird protectionist island of expensive and inefficient cars while the rest of the world is moving forward.
It’s not the first time of course. Something similar happened with banking, where the US got stuck in the mid-20th century with people still using paper checks, no access to instant digital transfers, etc.
US has been protectionist forever. Even in the very low (good!) tariff rates under the WTO, ownership rules and safety (plus "safety") regulations acted as protection systems. Now, the US is afar from being the only country to have done this, but in the US they have chosen another layer that most successful countries have abandoned: national champions and cartel.
The EU, for all its faults, is a far more competetive environment than the US and has been for decades. Air travel, telecoms, and banking are far more competetive than the US. The US favors cartel systems so that there are a small number of airlines, telecom providers, foor companies, etc. Strict competition rules make things like credit cards much cheaper (no "points" etc because there's no money to fund them). So all those products are much cheaper in the EU than in the US and more dynamic too.
These higher prices make the GDP look bigger and the stock market too: in the EU that extorted money is returned as a consumer surplus.
Chinese EVs aren’t banned in the EU (to my knowledge), but have an import tax that brings their total price roughly to the level of western products. BYD is special amongst them, because they build cars in Hungary.
Completely untrue, Tesla FSD is approved for Finland, Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia, Croatia, Slovakia and Latvia. Chinese cars like BYD, Xpeng etc are everywhere too.
Can one buy a Mercedes or BMW today in Finland that can drive hands-off? Not meant as a rhetorical question. I thought that it's not possible but I might be wrong, am not an expert.
The real comparison is compared to most human drivers - distracted on their phones and smoking cigarettes, drunk driving or high on marijuana or laughing gas, etc.
This highlight the core issue of vision-only self driving: it falls apart when visibility is bad or confusing. Tesla FSD struggles with something as common as driving towards the sun at dawn/sunset.
The main issue is the tariffs and certification - like there is a literal hard cap on the total number of imports. It is getting better now though as BYD has the factory in Hungary at least.
It's crazy that the EU criticise Trump for the ridiculous tariffs, but then do near the same thing themselves.
Looking at your comments, which each and every one of is anti-EU and somewhat similar, I am almost convinced you are, in fact, a bot. And if you're not, then you have a clear agenda and given this very comment, just spread lies.
What? BYD, NIO and others are to be found everywhere in Germany.
I literally see one parked on the other side of the street looking out of my window right now.
That tariff barely covers the exchange rate manipulation. I do think it’s kind of stupid, for goods that are not strategic we should take advantage of the cheap EV prices so we can move more quickly on the green reforms.
The lower tariff on hybrid cars is even dumber, why do we want more polluting cars?
Hybrid cars getting any benefits is dumb, I agree. But I would argue that automotive and just transportation in general are strategic sectors basically anywhere.
European brands, especially French, are currently absolutely cooking with the new EV models. The boom started with Renault 5 and it took off from there.
So I personally am absolutely not afraid of the European brands disappearing somehow because China makes them quite well and affordably now, too. This previously already happened with Japanese and Korean ones as well and, to be honest, European brands just keep delivering exciting new cars that get your heart pumping and they still do. Meanwhile it hardly ever happens with the Asian ones. It does, but it's still... not the same kind excitement.
Tesla market share collapsed in 2025. It's had a bit of a dead cat bounce in 2026, but it's still nowhere close to what it was in 2024.
The Model Y still sells relatively well when compared to individual models, but every other manufacturer has a lot more than 2 models for sale. The VW sister companies have roughly 18 models that compete with the Y. The Y will outsell any of the 18, but if you add the 18 together, it does not.
I think North America is just a much bigger place so the required charging infrastructure build out is much larger than in European states. Personally, EVs are not practical yet in the US for my uses. When EV charging stations are as common as gas stations and charge times are reduced, I'll start looking at EVs.
The average american drives like 30 miles a day, even city oriented EVs give you 250+ miles these days. If you periodically need more just rent a car, you'll still save money in the long run
Are Europe and China not big places? I think if you look at the data of how most people actually use their cars, most of those who have an outlet at home would never need to visit a gas/charging station again except for those rare times when they actually go on long distance trips. Average daily commute is supposed to be around 25 miles (both ways)
Meh. Not saying they’re ready for your use, there’s a lot of reasons they wouldn’t be, but our charging infrastructure is in a really good place. There’s very few areas that you will struggle to charge on a long drive
There are so many mistakes in your comment that I can only conclude that you don't even want to understand.
I live in North America (Canada) and I own a "EV charging station". Most of time I just call it "the electric outlet in the garage".
Also, if you measure the active time, the "charge time" is ridiculously small: 15 seconds to plug, 15 seconds to unplug (and go do something else between those times). Beat that gas stations.
Anecdotal, but I think there are a few hurdles to overcome in the US.
- The infrastructure isn't there yet. I can get gas anywhere, but charging stations may be few and far between. The median salary in my area is mid $100k, and 50k pop. and I see Teslas and EV'S everywhere. But despite that the town has only 1 public charging station.
- For apartment dwellers, who don't have the option of charging at home or work, why bother putting up with the anxiety of trying to find a charger?
- The early adopters feel like they got burned. Lessees like low maintenance, and the batteries tend to deterioriate. Buyers get into the same situation, but have no equity, and it's hard to justify dropping $$$ for a new battery when they can put that into a new car.
- There's a lot of nothing in between major towns and cities. If it's super cold out, will you make it the 120mi/193km to your destination?
The issue in canada is that charging infrastructure is severely lagging, but also the travel distances are much longer on average and winter temperatures have a huge impact on range. So whether an EV can work for you is a lifestyle question.
AIUI, there are quite few electric cars available in the US compared to everywhere else; if you don't fancy a Tesla, or a restricted part of VW's or Hyundai's range, you don't have many options there.
Why do these articles never include a simple plot? Instead, they describe the time evolution of several curves in prose. Does anyone find that helpful?
Interesting how _seasonal_ this seems to be; there's a falloff in EV sales at the beginning of each year as a proportion of total sales, and then it rises. Maybe company fleet purchase timing?
You can buy a new EV for 20k EUR. Soon you can buy used EVs for much less. Of course it takes time before there will be used EVs for only 1000 EUR in the market. Maybe very long as an electric motor lasts longer than an ICE engine.
Also consider the cost for fuel vs electricity (with electricity you pay 1/5 vs gasoline if you charge at home).
My friend calculated and according to real world usage of similar small family cars, the difference is actually 1/12th of the diesel costs, and that’s at pre-war hiked prices. This isn’t a scientific comparison as cars aren’t exactly the same. But volume wise and frame size is about the same.
They were pushing it like nobody's business. The problem was a combination of the lack of charging infrastructure and the comparatively high EV prices. Cheaper EVs are perfectly viable in Europe even with the existing charging infrastructure as the Chinese have shown.
Plenty did not do anything for years and then the first ones to come out were super expensive in a "yeah we don't want to but here take this expensive thing".
You must not be familiar with Euro roadworthiness requirements. A car bought for that price will likely run up expenses of at least 80-90% of the purchase price again to get it to pass TüV or the like if it doesn't have it already, with even more looming on the horizon. Instead of buying something with three wheels in the grave, why not just get a monthly train ticket for a fraction of the price?
What do you think will happen to the train ticket prices if you push everyone towards public transport? Depending on which zones you are travelling between in London it can already cost you £300 / month. That's £3600 a year. Not even factoring in safety which becomes a priority if you have a family.
That's a UK thing. You did that entirely to yourself.
Deutschlandticket is 55 GBP / month and valid across all German regional public transport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandticket. ICE is excluded, but if you are commuting via ICE...
Zurich pass, valid on all public transport is 800 CHF per year.
That's mostly just a UK thing; you can blame John Major, to a large extent.
(Unusually, not Thatcher; even Thatcher was against privatising the railways.)
Arguably it was kind of the same problem as Brexit; the Tories expected to lose in 1992, so felt free-er to put all sorts of stupid shit in their manifesto, including privatising the railways. Then they won. Surprisingly, they did not learn their lesson.
> Not even factoring in safety which becomes a priority if you have a family.
Huh? Are you claiming that trains are more unsafe than cars?
No, it's still very common for people to drive clunkers, and they pass the mandated tests. The AC won't work, and probably not each electric window either, but that hasn't anything to do with roadworthiness.
Especially young men buy these clunkers because they can't afford anything else. Young women more often get better cars as a gift from their parents, who want to make sure she doesn't have to depend on getting a ride from some creep in a clunker.
This. Seriously, this comment section just reeks of American coastal liberal types who haven't spent a single day in their lives in an impoverished countryside. Half the town I am in right now drive old Toyota Hilux and the other half drive clunkers wishing they could afford an old Hilux. Not a single EV in sight and for a good reason.
I’ve been to impoverished rural areas in the USA thanks to my time in Mississippi. I’ve also been to impoverished rural areas in the rest of the world where they can’t afford to drive an old best up hilux because they don’t have American petrol supply chains so they have no choice but to drive electric. American rural areas are their own kind of entitled.
I would expect that people drive cheap motorcycles in such places (and buy gas from plastic coke bottles). Where would they afford an electric car and not a bike? Where do you have roads enough for electric cars, but no gas stations?
I agree that this is a problem for a small percentage of peoople and I find it ignorant to playt down this issue.
But EVs are critical to the environment and we have to do something.
Also the biggest issue is not EVs, its the super unclear and slow transition and borderline fighting against it which would allow for cheap EVs to exist due to scaling laws.
Right now about 38 million people in Eastern Europe alone live rural. That is not a "small percentage" by any means. Half the town I am in right now drive old Toyota Hilux and the other half drive clunkers wishing they could afford an old Hilux. Not a single EV in sight and for a good reason.
Also, these people are at the brink with all the bullshit from Brussels and let's not forget these are the same people that can fire up their tractors, load them up with manure and have a delivery to Brussels as they have done so in the past already.
> I agree that this is a problem for a small percentage of peoople and I find it ignorant to playt down this issue.
Back when I was poor as an European I just commuted by bus. Then I bought my first car for the equivalent of 1600 Euros (in 2014 at that) and while I was saving 30 minutes on my commute daily, I was spending a lot on fuel and insurance.
The clanker lasted about a year before it started burning too much oil and making weird rattling noises from the engine. Long term the purchase alone was less then half of all expenses over the course of that year.
I don't believe it's reasonable to buy a 1000 Euro car if that's the only thing you can afford, because the expenses will just keep piling up.
Leasing of small cars for an affordable price got a lot more common the last x years, but if you have no option at all and you life in a small city, you might just need to have a car.
Even ifts the cheap car which you replace in 1-3 years
It seem to me that Europe has the public transit to be able to do that. The problem in North America is that having a car is pretty much necessary for most people, or at least deemed so, thus you can't quickly phase out heat engines (ICE's waste most energy as heat).
Public transit is good but only in big cities. In the other rural areas without a car you are pretty much fucked, and those are also the poorest areas... people there cannot buy a car unless it is a very old used one
I think this is true, that "in North America is that having a car is pretty much necessary for most people" and that in Europe it's necessary for some people.
This is neither a pro nor anti EV point though, it's not related to that. "Needing a car" says nothing about whether it's an EV or not.
Love the bandwagon takes. It's so obvious that you are personally against this and will latch onto any argument against EVs. No way you gave a shit about "denying personal vehicles to the poor" until you heard that sound bite as an argument against EVs.
Yeah, it's a bit odd; the "electric cars are expensive" narrative has become so entrenched that it is still trotted out even when it is no longer true.
Today in Ireland, you can get a VW Polo for 25k... or an id.Polo (the electric version) for 20k. Now, there are a couple of things going on there; the id.Polo is benefiting from a 3500 eur grant, and the Polo has about 1000 eur of VRT on it (electric cars are exempt). But _even ignoring subsidies_ they come in at about the same price. And, presumably, give it a couple of years, and the electric version will be solidly cheaper.
You must have missed the part about poor people from rural regions. They don't have 20K, they barely have 2K, they are not eligible for credit/lease and you obviously have never been to countryside if you are suggesting a Citroën Ami with a straight face.
I don't think that you're here in good faith and your tone is poor at best. You put words in my mouth that I did not say.
But, can you explain why "I don't see this ever being reality with EVs" ? Not just "not now" but "not ever". Wow.
If vehicle X is the same price or cheaper than vehicle Y when new, then given ten years and the resulting resale price drop, it sells used for the same price or cheaper than vehicle Y, not so?
I don't see the confounding factors as permanent, merely due to EVs being fairly new on the market. But now the new ones are plentiful, and the same price or cheaper as the ICE equivalent across market segments. So the rest is only a matter of time.
Change does not happen overnight. No-one is expecting it to. Arguing as if it's otherwise is straw-manning.
For 1k euros you'll get an absolute shitbox that will need 1k euros a year in maintenance, will kill you if you get in any kind of accident and won't be able to drive in most cities because of pollution requirements.
I had to replace the shitbox I bought for 5k euros 10 years ago, the same model/year with twice the kms now costs 9k+. And I consider that the bare minimum in term of road worthiness and safety, cars have been a luxury for a long time
The USA is becoming a weird protectionist island of expensive and inefficient cars while the rest of the world is moving forward.
It’s not the first time of course. Something similar happened with banking, where the US got stuck in the mid-20th century with people still using paper checks, no access to instant digital transfers, etc.
US has been protectionist forever. Even in the very low (good!) tariff rates under the WTO, ownership rules and safety (plus "safety") regulations acted as protection systems. Now, the US is afar from being the only country to have done this, but in the US they have chosen another layer that most successful countries have abandoned: national champions and cartel.
The EU, for all its faults, is a far more competetive environment than the US and has been for decades. Air travel, telecoms, and banking are far more competetive than the US. The US favors cartel systems so that there are a small number of airlines, telecom providers, foor companies, etc. Strict competition rules make things like credit cards much cheaper (no "points" etc because there's no money to fund them). So all those products are much cheaper in the EU than in the US and more dynamic too.
These higher prices make the GDP look bigger and the stock market too: in the EU that extorted money is returned as a consumer surplus.
So is Europe though. We even copied the US with the fixed fee on imports now plus an extra percentage fee coming in 2 years.
Meanwhile Chinese EVs are banned, and even Tesla FSD is banned in most of Europe.
Chinese EVs aren’t banned in the EU (to my knowledge), but have an import tax that brings their total price roughly to the level of western products. BYD is special amongst them, because they build cars in Hungary.
Completely untrue, Tesla FSD is approved for Finland, Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia, Croatia, Slovakia and Latvia. Chinese cars like BYD, Xpeng etc are everywhere too.
But not in France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Poland, Italy, Ireland, etc. - thus not in most of Europe.
Basically the smallest EU countries.
I agree that Chinese EV cars are all over Europe.
European car manufacturers are sleeping on FSD. Why would I buy a non-FSD car if there's not much price difference?
AFAIU only Ford and Tesla have it currently?
Mercedes has self driving that unlike Tesla has gone through proper safety testing and can be used at higher autonomy levels.
Camera-only systems like the Tesla cannot handle some weather conditions and should not allowed on European roads.
There is no Tesla Full self driving in europe.
BMW can self drive on autobahns in europe.
Can one buy a Mercedes or BMW today in Finland that can drive hands-off? Not meant as a rhetorical question. I thought that it's not possible but I might be wrong, am not an expert.
I'm glad FSD isn't allowed in Germany. A camera-only system is a long way from what I'd consider safe. Just as a reminder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJL3htsDyQ
Edge cases.
LIDAR wouldn't help in case of water/rain, quite the opposite. It does help for funny painting.
This is a ridiculous edge case.
The real comparison is compared to most human drivers - distracted on their phones and smoking cigarettes, drunk driving or high on marijuana or laughing gas, etc.
This highlight the core issue of vision-only self driving: it falls apart when visibility is bad or confusing. Tesla FSD struggles with something as common as driving towards the sun at dawn/sunset.
Limit FSD to southbound roads, problem solved!
> Meanwhile Chinese EVs are banned
Maybe I misunderstand you, but I don’t think this is true. On the contrary: AFAIK there isn’t a single European country that does this.
Which countries are you thinking of?
The main issue is the tariffs and certification - like there is a literal hard cap on the total number of imports. It is getting better now though as BYD has the factory in Hungary at least.
It's crazy that the EU criticise Trump for the ridiculous tariffs, but then do near the same thing themselves.
And unlike Trump, we cannot vote them out.
>The main issue is the tariffs and certification - like there is a literal hard cap on the total number of imports.
Tesla benefited <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-19/tesla-vol...> from Canada cutting import duty on Chinese EVs, by grabbing most of the slots.
> Meanwhile Chinese EVs are banned
Are you actually in the EU? If so, are you blind? Chinese EVs self-evidently are not banned.
Looking at your comments, which each and every one of is anti-EU and somewhat similar, I am almost convinced you are, in fact, a bot. And if you're not, then you have a clear agenda and given this very comment, just spread lies.
In my neighborhood in London, roughly half the cars I see are Chinese EVs.
UK doesn't have the same tariffs the EU applies though...
Is Britain more relaxed than the EU around imports?
What? I see BYD electric cars everywhere in Switzerland/Italy where I usually hang around
> Meanwhile Chinese EVs are banned
What? BYD, NIO and others are to be found everywhere in Germany. I literally see one parked on the other side of the street looking out of my window right now.
It's not even the first time for cars!
What about the metric system, healthcare and food quality.
Europe has effectively banned Chinese cars so we have to buy them rebadged as bmw for 3x the price
That tariff barely covers the exchange rate manipulation. I do think it’s kind of stupid, for goods that are not strategic we should take advantage of the cheap EV prices so we can move more quickly on the green reforms.
The lower tariff on hybrid cars is even dumber, why do we want more polluting cars?
Hybrid cars getting any benefits is dumb, I agree. But I would argue that automotive and just transportation in general are strategic sectors basically anywhere.
No it hasn't and BYD has a factory in hungary now which solves the tarifs issue for BYD
I can see Jaeco, Omoda, BYD, Leapmotor, Lynk, MG... cars all day in Spain.
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European brands, especially French, are currently absolutely cooking with the new EV models. The boom started with Renault 5 and it took off from there.
So I personally am absolutely not afraid of the European brands disappearing somehow because China makes them quite well and affordably now, too. This previously already happened with Japanese and Korean ones as well and, to be honest, European brands just keep delivering exciting new cars that get your heart pumping and they still do. Meanwhile it hardly ever happens with the Asian ones. It does, but it's still... not the same kind excitement.
Although the article only mentions BYD, Tesla is gaining share in Europe despite Chinese EVs. <https://www.kansas.com/news/business/article317450876.html>
Tesla market share collapsed in 2025. It's had a bit of a dead cat bounce in 2026, but it's still nowhere close to what it was in 2024.
The Model Y still sells relatively well when compared to individual models, but every other manufacturer has a lot more than 2 models for sale. The VW sister companies have roughly 18 models that compete with the Y. The Y will outsell any of the 18, but if you add the 18 together, it does not.
P.S. Your link is broken.
I think North America is just a much bigger place so the required charging infrastructure build out is much larger than in European states. Personally, EVs are not practical yet in the US for my uses. When EV charging stations are as common as gas stations and charge times are reduced, I'll start looking at EVs.
The average american drives like 30 miles a day, even city oriented EVs give you 250+ miles these days. If you periodically need more just rent a car, you'll still save money in the long run
Are Europe and China not big places? I think if you look at the data of how most people actually use their cars, most of those who have an outlet at home would never need to visit a gas/charging station again except for those rare times when they actually go on long distance trips. Average daily commute is supposed to be around 25 miles (both ways)
Meh. Not saying they’re ready for your use, there’s a lot of reasons they wouldn’t be, but our charging infrastructure is in a really good place. There’s very few areas that you will struggle to charge on a long drive
There are so many mistakes in your comment that I can only conclude that you don't even want to understand.
I live in North America (Canada) and I own a "EV charging station". Most of time I just call it "the electric outlet in the garage".
Also, if you measure the active time, the "charge time" is ridiculously small: 15 seconds to plug, 15 seconds to unplug (and go do something else between those times). Beat that gas stations.
4.5 million EVs sold in the EU in 2026, a 31% increase for the year so far.
In North America, that's including Canada? 1.3 million EVs so far this year. Minus 21% YTD-26 vs YTD-25.
Perhaps American drivers are putting off their purchase of an electric car until the launch of the flying roadster?
Anecdotal, but I think there are a few hurdles to overcome in the US.
- The infrastructure isn't there yet. I can get gas anywhere, but charging stations may be few and far between. The median salary in my area is mid $100k, and 50k pop. and I see Teslas and EV'S everywhere. But despite that the town has only 1 public charging station.
- For apartment dwellers, who don't have the option of charging at home or work, why bother putting up with the anxiety of trying to find a charger?
- The early adopters feel like they got burned. Lessees like low maintenance, and the batteries tend to deterioriate. Buyers get into the same situation, but have no equity, and it's hard to justify dropping $$$ for a new battery when they can put that into a new car.
- There's a lot of nothing in between major towns and cities. If it's super cold out, will you make it the 120mi/193km to your destination?
This is just FUD.
The issue in canada is that charging infrastructure is severely lagging, but also the travel distances are much longer on average and winter temperatures have a huge impact on range. So whether an EV can work for you is a lifestyle question.
AIUI, there are quite few electric cars available in the US compared to everywhere else; if you don't fancy a Tesla, or a restricted part of VW's or Hyundai's range, you don't have many options there.
> In North America, that's including Canada? 1.3 million EVs so far this year. Minus 21% YTD-26 vs YTD-25.
Tesla benefited <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-19/tesla-vol...> from Canada cutting import duty on Chinese EVs, by grabbing most of the slots.
How are they going to tow their boats?
My EV can easily tow a boat
I was referring to the flying EV. You have a flying EV?
Where we’re going, we won’t need boats.
I thought the Cybertruck was a boat?
Is there a flying CyberFuck?
Why do these articles never include a simple plot? Instead, they describe the time evolution of several curves in prose. Does anyone find that helpful?
Best to skip the news article and use the interactive graphs based on the same data:
https://ember-energy.org/data/ev-sales-tracker/
Interesting how _seasonal_ this seems to be; there's a falloff in EV sales at the beginning of each year as a proportion of total sales, and then it rises. Maybe company fleet purchase timing?
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You can buy a new EV for 20k EUR. Soon you can buy used EVs for much less. Of course it takes time before there will be used EVs for only 1000 EUR in the market. Maybe very long as an electric motor lasts longer than an ICE engine.
Also consider the cost for fuel vs electricity (with electricity you pay 1/5 vs gasoline if you charge at home).
My friend calculated and according to real world usage of similar small family cars, the difference is actually 1/12th of the diesel costs, and that’s at pre-war hiked prices. This isn’t a scientific comparison as cars aren’t exactly the same. But volume wise and frame size is about the same.
A lot of European car manufacturers are in trouble exactly because they didn't pus EVs hard enough and let the Chinese take the market
They were pushing it like nobody's business. The problem was a combination of the lack of charging infrastructure and the comparatively high EV prices. Cheaper EVs are perfectly viable in Europe even with the existing charging infrastructure as the Chinese have shown.
Plenty did not do anything for years and then the first ones to come out were super expensive in a "yeah we don't want to but here take this expensive thing".
20% margin is nicer than 5% margin
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You must not be familiar with Euro roadworthiness requirements. A car bought for that price will likely run up expenses of at least 80-90% of the purchase price again to get it to pass TüV or the like if it doesn't have it already, with even more looming on the horizon. Instead of buying something with three wheels in the grave, why not just get a monthly train ticket for a fraction of the price?
What do you think will happen to the train ticket prices if you push everyone towards public transport? Depending on which zones you are travelling between in London it can already cost you £300 / month. That's £3600 a year. Not even factoring in safety which becomes a priority if you have a family.
That's a UK thing. You did that entirely to yourself.
Deutschlandticket is 55 GBP / month and valid across all German regional public transport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandticket. ICE is excluded, but if you are commuting via ICE...
Zurich pass, valid on all public transport is 800 CHF per year.
That's mostly just a UK thing; you can blame John Major, to a large extent.
(Unusually, not Thatcher; even Thatcher was against privatising the railways.)
Arguably it was kind of the same problem as Brexit; the Tories expected to lose in 1992, so felt free-er to put all sorts of stupid shit in their manifesto, including privatising the railways. Then they won. Surprisingly, they did not learn their lesson.
> Not even factoring in safety which becomes a priority if you have a family.
Huh? Are you claiming that trains are more unsafe than cars?
No, it's still very common for people to drive clunkers, and they pass the mandated tests. The AC won't work, and probably not each electric window either, but that hasn't anything to do with roadworthiness.
Especially young men buy these clunkers because they can't afford anything else. Young women more often get better cars as a gift from their parents, who want to make sure she doesn't have to depend on getting a ride from some creep in a clunker.
Because not everybody lives in a city.
This. Seriously, this comment section just reeks of American coastal liberal types who haven't spent a single day in their lives in an impoverished countryside. Half the town I am in right now drive old Toyota Hilux and the other half drive clunkers wishing they could afford an old Hilux. Not a single EV in sight and for a good reason.
I’ve been to impoverished rural areas in the USA thanks to my time in Mississippi. I’ve also been to impoverished rural areas in the rest of the world where they can’t afford to drive an old best up hilux because they don’t have American petrol supply chains so they have no choice but to drive electric. American rural areas are their own kind of entitled.
I would expect that people drive cheap motorcycles in such places (and buy gas from plastic coke bottles). Where would they afford an electric car and not a bike? Where do you have roads enough for electric cars, but no gas stations?
I agree that this is a problem for a small percentage of peoople and I find it ignorant to playt down this issue.
But EVs are critical to the environment and we have to do something.
Also the biggest issue is not EVs, its the super unclear and slow transition and borderline fighting against it which would allow for cheap EVs to exist due to scaling laws.
Right now about 38 million people in Eastern Europe alone live rural. That is not a "small percentage" by any means. Half the town I am in right now drive old Toyota Hilux and the other half drive clunkers wishing they could afford an old Hilux. Not a single EV in sight and for a good reason.
Also, these people are at the brink with all the bullshit from Brussels and let's not forget these are the same people that can fire up their tractors, load them up with manure and have a delivery to Brussels as they have done so in the past already.
> I agree that this is a problem for a small percentage of peoople and I find it ignorant to playt down this issue.
Back when I was poor as an European I just commuted by bus. Then I bought my first car for the equivalent of 1600 Euros (in 2014 at that) and while I was saving 30 minutes on my commute daily, I was spending a lot on fuel and insurance.
The clanker lasted about a year before it started burning too much oil and making weird rattling noises from the engine. Long term the purchase alone was less then half of all expenses over the course of that year.
I don't believe it's reasonable to buy a 1000 Euro car if that's the only thing you can afford, because the expenses will just keep piling up.
Leasing of small cars for an affordable price got a lot more common the last x years, but if you have no option at all and you life in a small city, you might just need to have a car.
Even ifts the cheap car which you replace in 1-3 years
It seem to me that Europe has the public transit to be able to do that. The problem in North America is that having a car is pretty much necessary for most people, or at least deemed so, thus you can't quickly phase out heat engines (ICE's waste most energy as heat).
Public transit is good but only in big cities. In the other rural areas without a car you are pretty much fucked, and those are also the poorest areas... people there cannot buy a car unless it is a very old used one
I think this is true, that "in North America is that having a car is pretty much necessary for most people" and that in Europe it's necessary for some people.
This is neither a pro nor anti EV point though, it's not related to that. "Needing a car" says nothing about whether it's an EV or not.
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We'd have a sprawling affordable EV market much sooner if it weren't for the insane countervailing duties against Chinese BEV imports
Love the bandwagon takes. It's so obvious that you are personally against this and will latch onto any argument against EVs. No way you gave a shit about "denying personal vehicles to the poor" until you heard that sound bite as an argument against EVs.
oh yes, europe is so famous for its extensive oil fields allowing for cheap oil for heating and transportation to the poor masses
You really gotta be careful with such statements. You obviously mean EU, there are rich oil fields in Europe. Just real far to the East.
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Still lots of cheap ICE cars being sold in Europe.
Without the Toyota pickup truck, how will Marty take Jennifer to the lake? Throw a couple of sleeping bags in the back ...
Here's a data point about how out of touch with reality this opinion is:
the 10 cheapest new cars you can buy in the UK in 2026
https://petrolblog.com/articles/cheapest-new-cars-uk-2026
This includes 4 or 5 EVs and a couple of hybrids.
Yeah, it's a bit odd; the "electric cars are expensive" narrative has become so entrenched that it is still trotted out even when it is no longer true.
Today in Ireland, you can get a VW Polo for 25k... or an id.Polo (the electric version) for 20k. Now, there are a couple of things going on there; the id.Polo is benefiting from a 3500 eur grant, and the Polo has about 1000 eur of VRT on it (electric cars are exempt). But _even ignoring subsidies_ they come in at about the same price. And, presumably, give it a couple of years, and the electric version will be solidly cheaper.
You must have missed the part about poor people from rural regions. They don't have 20K, they barely have 2K, they are not eligible for credit/lease and you obviously have never been to countryside if you are suggesting a Citroën Ami with a straight face.
I don't think that you're here in good faith and your tone is poor at best. You put words in my mouth that I did not say.
But, can you explain why "I don't see this ever being reality with EVs" ? Not just "not now" but "not ever". Wow.
If vehicle X is the same price or cheaper than vehicle Y when new, then given ten years and the resulting resale price drop, it sells used for the same price or cheaper than vehicle Y, not so?
I don't see the confounding factors as permanent, merely due to EVs being fairly new on the market. But now the new ones are plentiful, and the same price or cheaper as the ICE equivalent across market segments. So the rest is only a matter of time.
Change does not happen overnight. No-one is expecting it to. Arguing as if it's otherwise is straw-manning.
For 1k euros you'll get an absolute shitbox that will need 1k euros a year in maintenance, will kill you if you get in any kind of accident and won't be able to drive in most cities because of pollution requirements.
I had to replace the shitbox I bought for 5k euros 10 years ago, the same model/year with twice the kms now costs 9k+. And I consider that the bare minimum in term of road worthiness and safety, cars have been a luxury for a long time