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no one is willing to admit the EV tech isn't just there yet to fully replace gas powered cars?
by PreciousH 6mo ago
no one is willing to admit the EV tech isn't just there yet to fully replace gas powered cars?
- ceejayoz 6mo agoStrawman, basically no one argues "fully". Yet.
- jillesvangurp 6mo ago> no one is willing to admit the EV tech isn't just there yet The easy explanation is that it's because it is there. The article is about the rapid decline of companies that believe otherwise. They aren't doing to great.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- applfanboysbgon 6mo ago98% of new car sales in Norway are EV at this point. How do you admit something that is not true?
- quickthrowman 6mo agoA wealthy nation with a small population that has plenty of money to update their infrastructure is not comparable to upgrading the grid and converting the fleet of 250M cars in the US, which is a mess of 50 states who spend varying amounts of money on their infrastructure. The US grid is already stressed by all these new data centers, where is the power to send 10kW of power minimum to tens to hundreds of millions of vehicles every day going to come from? 100M vehicles times 10kW divided by one million is One Million Megawatts. One Thousand Gigawatts. That’s five hundred 2GW power plants. Four thousand solar panels make 1MW, four million solar panels make 1GW, four billion solar panels make 1000 GW. And that’s 40% of the fleet converted to EVs, and does not account for diesel semi-tractors being converted to EV.
- applfanboysbgon 6mo ago> which is a mess of 50 states who spend varying amounts of money on their infrastructure. That is not a tech problem, which is the claim I was replying to. I saw your deleted comment about four charging stations costing $200,000 or so. Four petrol stations also cost that much. Nobody is saying infrastructure is free, but phasing out infrastructure is simply a matter of time and political will, not a fundamental tech problem.
- quickthrowman 6mo agoI agree that we’ll eventually fully convert to EVs, it’s just going to take way longer than a lot of people expect. It’s going to be tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade electrical transmission, distribution, and premises distribution. Edit: You nailed it, it’s a political problem in the US.
- applfanboysbgon 6mo ago> It’s going to be tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade electrical transmission, distribution, and premises distribution. Would certainly happen a lot faster if, for example, America spent the $200 billion the Pentagon just asked for the Iran war on infrastructure instead. It would even benefit Americans, imagine that! America is the wealthiest country in the world by far, it has the capital to facilitate the process, but taxpayers would rather blow it on bombing schools across the world.
- danaris 6mo ago> taxpayers would rather I think if you look at poll numbers, you'll find that taxpayers, on the whole, would very much rather not be bombing schools across the world. Trump's pointless (indeed, highly counterproductive) strikes on Iran are not at all popular, and quite the opposite of the platform he campaigned on.
- rjrjrjrj 6mo ago
- GenerWork 6mo agoRemove the EV subsidies and ICE taxes, and what would that number switch to?
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- speedgoose 6mo ago97% perhaps. EVs are nicer and more convenient there. And cheaper.
- tw-20260303-001 6mo ago> And cheaper. You sound like a broken record. > Remove the EV subsidies and ICE taxes.
- speedgoose 6mo agoShould I include the cost of the current wars?
- tw-20260303-001 6mo agoGo on then.
- speedgoose 6mo agoPer my calculations, EVs are cheaper over the whole vehicle lifetime. I included construction costs and usage costs, in terms of money, environmental impact, and health impacts. Of course, no cars is even better. If we could all ski, cycle, or run, it would be even cheaper and better for our health. It’s a trade of.
- tw-20260303-001 6mo agoWe could all go back to caves, too.
- tw-20260303-001 6mo agoYes. Five million of them does not require many cars. 180k in 2025. Compare that to 2.4 million in Germany.
- wodenokoto 6mo agoI think 80 or 90% of new cars in northern Europe are electric. Saying EV tech isn’t there to replace gas is like saying gas tech isn’t there to replace diesel. Gas powered cars are niche or legacy.
- SirHumphrey 6mo agoIn 2024[1]: - 37.2% in Sweeden - 51.6% in Denmark - 30.4% in Finland of newly registered cars were BEV. Only Norway reaches 89% you are talking about. The total average of newly registered BEV cars in European Union was 13.6%. The EV tech is here,but the grid in most EU countries is certainly not. The proliferation of heat pumps in the local area caused 3 blackouts caused by a failure of a local transformer - something that hasn't happened before or at least not as frequently. And in most countries you are looking at doubling the electricity consumption if all road transport was to switch to electricity. [1]: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/new-registrations-of-electric-vehicles https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/new-registr...
- sehansen 6mo agoIn 2025[1]: 64.3% in Sweden - 69.3% in Denmark - 55.2% in Finland. Across the EU 2.6 million BEVs were sold out of ~13 million cars in total, i.e. 20% in 2025. That's on top of 1.3 million PHEVs which is an even faster growing segment. So it's not quite 80% yet, but it's getting there fast. 1: https://www.tradingpedia.com/forex-brokers/global-demand-for-evs-market-shifts-and-growth-trends-by-country-in-2024-and-2025/ https://www.tradingpedia.com/forex-brokers/global-demand-for...
- margalabargala 6mo ago> Fully Everyone's willing to admit that. EV tech is there to replace the vast majority of gas powered cars. We don't need to get to "fully" to have a replacement event. Horses can travel down trails that cars cannot, that didn't save them.
- whynotmaybe 6mo agoEverybody knows it won't fully replace it. It's impossible to go on a long off-road travel with the EV equivalent of 50L of gas in a jerrycan. But some are twisting the narrative to say that because of that reason EV will fail. Millions of people could use an EV in their daily life, just like I can go without a pickup in my daily life and rent one whenever I need one.
- nslsm 6mo agoI’m not affluent enough to buy one car for my daily life and rent another for whenever I have to leave the city.
- timbit42 6mo agoLook at a hybrid.
- neogodless 6mo agoShow the math.. only about 12% of buyers buy new cars. Economical, efficient EVs can be had for $20k. Renting a big truck occasionally can be as little as $20, but even at $5000 for a truck rental... most people are buying trucks that cost $10, $20, $30K more than an enconomy car.
- whynotmaybe 6mo agoHow often do you leave the city for more than 200km? Each time I travel oversea, I take a "public transportation plane", not my private jet. It's not because an EV doesn't fit for 100% of your requirements, that it doesn't fit for everyone. No car fits for 100%.
- 8note 6mo agoYou could alternatively just rent a car or truck when you need one, and not one a car at all? if you arent affluent, all the costs that come with car ownership are a bit excessive. even still you might want to go for the cheap EV, and just not do things that require a pickup, rather than paying the costs of the pickup all the time
- ahussain 6mo agoThe EV tech seems to be good enough already in China
- nxm 6mo agoHeavily subsidized by China to undercut the international competition
- kdheiwns 6mo agoI only hear people in certain countries say this. Meanwhile many countries with rough terrain and long roads are already all in on EVs.
- seabrookmx 6mo agoWhich ones?
- dangus 6mo agoThat's a strange statement considering that 20% of new vehicles sold globally are EVs. And that's not just China propping up the numbers: 20% of new vehicles sold in the EU are EVs as well. Obviously that's not "fully replace" territory, but that is most definitely a critical mass beyond being a niche vehicle category. The EV market globally is growing much faster than the ICE market. At the rate of technology and pricing improvement, EVs taking over the majority of sales is almost inevitable. It's just not growing as quickly in certain markets like the USA, and many predictions were too aggressive. Who is really going to prefer ICE vehicles when we start seeing median MSRP vehicles start to reach customers with 400-500mile+ range numbers? This isn't some crazy idea (e.g., see the 2026 BMW i3, estimated range of 440 miles in an entry level premium sedan - in 5-10 years that's the kind of spec you'll be seeing in a cheap Kia). There just isn't that much more progress in battery technology and pricing left to achieve to make ICE fully obsolete, and that is exacerbated by oil prices that are now set to rise for years to come.
- rsynnott 6mo agoThey just have to replace most use cases. There will come a point, not too far away, where battery progress makes them cheaper to purchase than petrol cars (for many use cases the point may already have come where TCO is lower, and Trump’s oil crisis will only speed the arrival of that point for more use cases.)
- rossjudson 6mo agoGas powered cars can't fully replace EVs either. After three years and 50k miles with a Model X, the idea of buying a non-EV seems ridiculous.