It’s so wild to me to make a multiyear purchasing decision based upon recent events. My next car will be an EV not suggesting it’s a bad decision however I’m still blown away by statistics like this.
Oil usage being subject to supply shocks is nothing new, it’s completely inevitable. Moving to renewables is an obvious upgrade, this recent crisis is just bringing that into the light for folk.
It's more like the recent events trigger people's awareness and learning about multi-year trends that are happening regardless of recent events.
EVs are a good deal in much of the world. They're more quiet, lower maintenance costs, lower fuel costs, therefore lower cost of ownership and operation. And they have less volatile costs as electricity prices swing less than gas prices.
Long-term trends show electricity and gas prices decouple.
It's just that every time gas prices spike, people look into solutions and find out these truths.
EVs have been better for ~90% of the driving most people do for a decade, but a lot of people held back because they fixated on things like epic road trips or needing to haul many sheets of plywood.
What a price shock does is force people to acknowledge how much money they’ve been spending on edge-cases, making many of them reconsider how much it’s really worth to, for example, go on an all-day drive without every stopping for more than a few minutes or whether the SUV/pickup truck aesthetic is worth paying 50% more every day.
I recommend e-bikes. If you get a folding one it can go in the boot of the car and save you on parking. I own a petrol car but hardly use it as the bike is handier for me.
I think I agree but currently it's analysis paralysis. Just had a huge repair bill come in for the car and to be blunt if I could supplement its daily wear and tear I'd appreciate it, so the fire under me is starting to get lit.
PHEVs are typically discouraged in many countries nowadays, because drivers fall into one of two categories:
A) plug-in to charge on a (virtually) daily basis at home
B) plug-in to charge as necessary, some of whom have no home-charging (apartment-dweller)
PHEVs make no sense for category (A) people because there is no range-anxiety if you home-charge every day. Typical drivers do 40km a day on average. Even an entry-level Tesla model 3 has >530km of range, and goes up to 750km for the model 3.
PHEVs also make no sense for category (B) people, because the PHEV has just 50km of range. So if you don't plug in all the time, you're basically driving a gasoline car with an extra engine and a battery, increasing weight (= fuel) and maintenance cost.
Various studies of real-world usage have shown PHEVs are less efficient because the behavior of its drivers. They'd be better off just driving a regular hybrid, like a Corolla.
The only area where PHEVs make sense are people who drive short-distances on a daily basis, plug in the car always at home, yet make frequent (say weekend) long trips of 6+ hours of driving without any breaks, or long trips to remote areas with no charging infrastructure. This is a pretty rare combination. Most PHEVs are traditionally owned by urbanites lured by a green dream and green subsidies, who're better off getting a pure EV or just an efficient boring hybrid.
And demand will probably go up a lot further still. Right now fuel prices are kept artificially low by every country releasing their strategic reserves, but these will run out at some point.
Europe is heading into the worst energy crisis since at least the 1970s, possibly worse. And yet very little is happening to prepare for it. Definitely some fun times ahead.
Every country? Or just the US? Fuel is through the roof in most countries, Japan had to dedollarize (call in its USA loans) to buy oil and several Asian countries had to switch to 4-day workweeks to avoid riots and coups.
Slightly off-topic, but can anyone comment on the quality of the EV charging infrastructure in the EU? Outside of owning an EV and charging it at home/work, are fast chargers reliable and abundant enough for road trips?
I recently looked into renting an EV in Spain and instead opted for gas. It seems like the public charging infrastructure is just not all that reliable there (e.g. broken chargers + delivering less power than advertised) and fragmented when it comes to paying across many apps. Maybe this is specific to Spain after all.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 33.9 ms ] threadEVs are a good deal in much of the world. They're more quiet, lower maintenance costs, lower fuel costs, therefore lower cost of ownership and operation. And they have less volatile costs as electricity prices swing less than gas prices.
Long-term trends show electricity and gas prices decouple.
It's just that every time gas prices spike, people look into solutions and find out these truths.
What a price shock does is force people to acknowledge how much money they’ve been spending on edge-cases, making many of them reconsider how much it’s really worth to, for example, go on an all-day drive without every stopping for more than a few minutes or whether the SUV/pickup truck aesthetic is worth paying 50% more every day.
https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/magazine/energy-and-powertra...
PHEVs make no sense for category (A) people because there is no range-anxiety if you home-charge every day. Typical drivers do 40km a day on average. Even an entry-level Tesla model 3 has >530km of range, and goes up to 750km for the model 3.
PHEVs also make no sense for category (B) people, because the PHEV has just 50km of range. So if you don't plug in all the time, you're basically driving a gasoline car with an extra engine and a battery, increasing weight (= fuel) and maintenance cost.
Various studies of real-world usage have shown PHEVs are less efficient because the behavior of its drivers. They'd be better off just driving a regular hybrid, like a Corolla.
The only area where PHEVs make sense are people who drive short-distances on a daily basis, plug in the car always at home, yet make frequent (say weekend) long trips of 6+ hours of driving without any breaks, or long trips to remote areas with no charging infrastructure. This is a pretty rare combination. Most PHEVs are traditionally owned by urbanites lured by a green dream and green subsidies, who're better off getting a pure EV or just an efficient boring hybrid.
Europe is heading into the worst energy crisis since at least the 1970s, possibly worse. And yet very little is happening to prepare for it. Definitely some fun times ahead.
I recently looked into renting an EV in Spain and instead opted for gas. It seems like the public charging infrastructure is just not all that reliable there (e.g. broken chargers + delivering less power than advertised) and fragmented when it comes to paying across many apps. Maybe this is specific to Spain after all.