The tax credit in the USA would end December 31st, 2025. Here’s what that means.
TL;DR: EV cars & SUVs will face an average 16% effective price increase, with the lowest cost model up more than 28%, if the law goes into effect as written.
Now i can afford one even less. Yay /s
I’m wondering if they’ll finally offer a real base model, with knobs and buttons for climate controls instead of a giant tablet in the dash. If they want to make them affordable they can.
Chevy Bolt was like that and started under $30k. Equinox is like that too. I’m probably in the market this fall and it’s definitely on my list. My only knocks against it are they got rid of Android Auto/Apple CarPlay (although it does have access to some apps from the Google Play store, so maybe not as big of a deal unless you want to de-Google) and the 0-60 time is not as good as the similarly-priced EV6/Ioniq 5. DC fast charging speed is also slower than the latter, but probably acceptable given how rarely I expect to use that.
Yes, because it’s the lack of knobs and buttons making EVs expensive. /s
No, unnecessary tech and luxury features make evs expensive. They’re marketed as luxury cars.
I was wondering if automakers thought the market would be shinking to an untenable point. Perhaps then they would decide to pivot and market them to a larger, lower income market. That would like include said knobs.
Knobs and buttons are nowadays similar in cost to just plonking in a screen and putting all the controls there. That is why manufacturers are doing it not just because it ‘feels premium’.
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I’ve never worked for an auto maker. I am a computer engineer (BS in Electrical and Computer engineering) though. While earning my degree I developed the hardware and software that served as a battery management computer in an electric car for a student competition. I currently write software tools for hardware engineering.
I say all that to say this: on the BOM, yes, a touch screen may be cheaper. However, you cannot even complete the BOM for discrete components without doing at least a MVP sort of UI development pass. With a touch screen, you can just do the physical design around it, and kick the UI design can down the road.
All kinds of fuckery can happen from there, including understaffing development of UI, poor quality control of code, and just plain inexperienced decisions in a relatively new landscape for many software developers. ‘Just turn it on and off’ isn’t an option for your dashboard when it goes blank at 70mph on the highway.
Just give me reliable knobs and dials. This is a machine, not jewelry.
In the USA. Not everywhere else.
Ope, right you are. I do American auto news, still figuring out how geography works on Fedia. Let me tweak that, make it more obvious.
Wonder what this will do for the used EV market?
I think repealing the credit may not raise the price very much. If the government is offering a credit, wouldn’t sellers simply raise their price to absorb the credit while the buyer thinks they’re getting a deal? Without the credit, sellers may be motivated to reduce the price while still making money on the sale.
I saw this in action when I purchased a used EV recently. My choice, which didn’t qualify for the credit, was interestingly cheaper than comparable cars that did. Seemed about one tax credit cheaper for some reason. Could be a coincidence.
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I think I’m seeing more and more EVs in my city as time goes on. EVs get a special plate so it’s easy to see. Demand is increasing. We use Ford Lightnings at work, and guys in other trades seem envious. Another example, the mustang EV outsold the gas powered this year. I think that trend will continue.
Nice! Color me jealous, I drive an ICE truck, I test-drove a Lightning, it was very nice.
Rn, I think it’s something like 8% of new vehicle registrations per year are EVs. It’s about double that in Europe, and triple that in China (14% and 25%, I think).
So, growing, but if it grows much slower, we’ll be at the back of the pack, and I think being in the lead on this will keep our auto industry competitive for global exports, which are a big chunk of our export economy.
