Comment on xkcd #3214: Electric Vehicles
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 hours agoDepreciation is a massive slice of the pie in all cars, but EVs are hit even harder.
I think that’s a quirk of Tesla trying to preserve market share by aggressively cutting prices of their new models over the past 5 years, which naturally puts pressure on all used models on the road. I don’t think that can last.
If EV manufacturers are racing to compete on price, then the new EVs will get cheaper faster to where EVs are cheaper than ICE vehicles new. And if the EV manufacturers stop cutting prices, then that will alleviate that depreciation pressure.
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub 1 hour ago
I guess an update is in order. I was thinking of a calculation that is already several years old. I can’t even find it any more, but it had three options: small gasoline powered ICE car, hybrid and a fully electric one. Can’t remember if the latter one was Tesla, Toyota, BMW or something. Anyway, at that time, TCO of a small gasoline powered car was a bit lower that that of a hybrid or a fully electric one.
The final tipping point will be when the demand for EVs exceeds the demand for other car types. When that happens, depreciation of gasoline cars will increase dramatically, giving EVs a lower TCO. At the moment, charging infrastructure seems to be the bottle neck for a many people, so that’s why we haven’t gone past the tipping point yet. The real bottle neck here is actually the electrical grid, and upgrading that will take many years, if not decades. We could install more charging stations, but that would break the whole grid, so that’s why we have to limit their number in specific parts of the grid.
The price of a new EV is obviously going to decrease in the future, as every step along the chain ramps up production. Alternative battery chemistries play a role as well, now that LFP cars have finally entered the market. I’m also looking forward to seeing how Na-ion batteries affect the prices, but that’s still going to take a many years. I expect that in about 5-10 years the prices of cheap EVs will be a lot lower than they are today.