I bought a used 2013 Fiat 500e last year for $8k. It's perfect for my wife's commute (50mi roundtrip; comes home with 20% remaining charge). We plug it into household 120v overnight. It drives like a zippy little gocart.
It wouldn't be ideal for a one-car family, but as a commuter it's better and cheaper.
My own insecurities, but 20% remaining daily would definitely have me on a bit of an edge. Is it a smoothly linear battery consumption, or is it possible to drop from 16% to 4%, seemingly at random?
Using an overly simplistic 80% used for 50 files would imply .63 miles per battery percentage. Meaning she only has slack of 12.5 miles to empty the tank. Which is less concerning when you can rely on ubiquitous gas stations.
It's extremely linear, modulo speed. It is possible to project your arrival state of charge within 1-2% even for a destination two hours away across significant topography.
On flat land. Throw in hills and the number of projected range miles used by every real mile goes up very quickly.
I don't remember the specific numbers anymore, but we had two Fiat 500e cars and commuting over a mountain drained a lot of projected miles even though the climb was just a few miles.
And weather. My colleague has a Leaf, his range is cut by a 30-40% in winter, and he is saving on the heating too to save range, so it is double uncomfortable.
The Leaf is somewhat famous for having poor battery management; it's one reason we avoided them. I don't think a used Leaf could handle a 50mi roundtrip commute, especially with a 10yo battery.
The Fiat does have a range penalty for cold weather (it occasionally gets below freezing in the part of California I live in) and running the heater (one way; usually it's warm enough by the trip home). My wife still gets home with > 10%.
Keep in mind this is a 10yo car with an 80mi range; newer cars have bigger batteries.
> Commutes are extremely predictable, it's the same every day.
Tell that to my colleague, who due to an accident near a major junction, took over an hour to travel a key couple of miles on his commute home from work yesterday.
Some journeys are "predictably unpredictable" during rush hour.
Well, the good news about an EV is that if you're creeping along at barely any speed, the consumption is going to be way lower than a comparable gas car. Basically all you're using is AC/heat. A gas car comparably is much less efficient while idling.
I went back to look for my notes on this and this is what I experienced: The Fiat would use up about 30-40 miles of indicated range to go uphill less than 10 miles. But it would only regenerate 2-3 miles (of indicated range) on the downhill side.
EV batteries are very reliable at showing state of charge. Even if it says it has 1%, you can rely on having that whole 1% left.
In a cellphone you have just one cell, and the phone turned on can be pulling near its maximum power draw, so it's unstable and unpredictable.
In a BEV you have thousands of cells, so differences between individual cells average out, and you don't draw peak power unless you're racing (and the car is smart enough to not let you smoke tires at 1% battery).
You never let your ICE car get below a quarter tank? This is even easier to deal with than the ICE scenario where you find yourself low and still have to get yourself to the gas station. OP finds themselves low as they pull into their driveway/filling station.
A quarter tank of fuel leaves me with >80 miles of range remaining. That enables nearly any impromptu trip I am likely to engage, along with the ability to refill basically anywhere. Rolling the dice with ~13 miles available on a daily basis would make me uneasy. What if there is an accident that re-routes traffic? Some kind of hazard that has me stuck for hours? What if I want to go to the mall after work?
I want EVs to work, and my next car is quite likely to be one, but limited locations for quick re-fueling are a real concern of mine.
2) From a time when batteries were much worse than today
3) With low original range
4) Not including the extra 10-20 miles or so that most car makers add to the "0" point, similar to how a gas tank isn't quite empty when the display says it is.
I'm guessing OP bought it for relatively cheap and is saving $20-$30 a day running it like that. That's worth the taxi / tow / calling your spouse, when you get stuck twice a year.
> you can stop at a charger and top-up. It's a small battery, it doesn't take long
the problem is scaling.
gas takes on average less than a minute per car to top up the tank (gas pump emits ~0.5 liters per second, my car tank capacity is less than 30 liters), if a battery charge requires say 15 minutes (I actually don't know the real number, but I have a feeling that it's usually more than that) that's 15 times longer waiting times and 15 times less capacity per station.
We don't use the Fiat for road trips, but we often caravan with friends with Teslas. Every couple hours they stop at a supercharger station for 15 minutes. It's really not that bad; we stop as often just to keep our kiddo sane. The stations usually have interesting services next door.
Supercharger stations usually have dozens of spots; gas stations typically have maybe ten? An EV station just needs one parking spot per car, so they are much more space efficient than gas stations. The only real constraint is electrical infrastructure.
BTW it averages much more than 1m per car for fueling. Person gets out of the car, fishes around in their purse for the credit card, fiddles with the cryptic instructions on the pump, walks into store to piss and buy junk food... if you've had to wait at a busy station, you'd be acutely aware of just how long fueling actually takes. Humans are slow.
Most people in cities will be charging at home though, the big supercharging stations will be along the highways where people are driving for hours. And with how simple car chargers are, they can just be a part of supermarket parking lots, etc.
> Most people in cities will be charging at home though
That's exactly where the US and the rest of the World diverge.
In most of the rest of the World people in cities are precisely those who would not be charging at home, because it would be impossible.
Besides, my car is parked 5 minutes walking away from where my house is.
And I've been extremely lucky to find a parking spot so close.
If what you meant is that the cars will be charging at night while they are parked on the streets, think again.
On street chargers here won't be a common thing for the next 20 years, at least.
Not to say that it's impossible, but it's hardly a worthy switch, from the POV of users.
A much better solution would be drastically reducing the dependency from cars, instead of electrifying them and marketing them as the next cool thing, so that a lot more cars will be clogging and occupying a lot of parking space on our perfectly cyclable and perfectly walkable pavements and roads.
Once EVs are more common, it will make more sense for parking lot operators to offer charging services for more income.
You say that it will take over 20 years to roll out on-street charging, but somehow reducing the dependency on cars can be done quicker or easier?
I live in Japan, which is often touted as a very public transit-friendly society, but I have 2 kids and could not live without a car. Especially in the summer with 36C+ temperatures, or during typhoon season. Believing that we can have a future with zero cars seems very unrealistic.
Yep. I had range anxiety far, far more often with my old petrol car than I have with my new electric.
I've set my charge threshold to 70% now - so that's what I start with every single day -representing about 400km.
I'd have over 400km of range only with a relatively freshly filled car before. And from there it's easy enough to put off refiling until you absolutely HAVE to have more fuel.
The key point is "we plug it into household overnight". So basically impossible for anyone living in the apartments (most of the Europe at minimum). At least in the next decade, looking at electrification rates.
No. I own a car and I live in the apartment. Car is parked on the underground parking or can be parked around the building on the street spots. None of those are wired for charging and it would be incredibly expensive to do it now (I've also seen several new building in process of being build, just this winter, and there were no charging stations in the parkings too).
So my closest charging option is a station 25 minutes away from me (on bus). And that station has 10 posts, while in the surrounding area live maybe 50000 people, or so. Not very time friendly. Also because of the charging time it means that there is even no point to leave car at the station and take a bus home, because by the time I will get there I would need to go back immediately (25+25 minutes=50 min, and charging is about an hour or two).
Also price. People charging at home use a cheap electricity, while station charges really high prices. In the EU city I'm right now, the difference is x4.5 times. So while me and a rich guy in a private house are paying the same price for the petrol now, tomorrow when we both have EVs I will be literally subsidizing him indirectly, by forced to use much more expensive public charging.
I really want to own EV since early Tesla years, and often check news about the progress in this industry, but really don't see how can I do it.
The Chevy Bolt is pretty cheap, especially with a rebate.
There are a lot of people who just can't afford a new car. That's a legitimate concern. EVs are gradually working their way into the used market.
EV conversion is another option that's currently only for moderately well-off people with a lot of free time, but with the right kits it could be a more routine thing.
> The average transaction price (ATP) of a new vehicle in the U.S. hit a record high in December at $49,507, an increase of 1.9% ($927) from November and up 4.9% ($2,297) from year-earlier levels. New-vehicle inventory levels are increasing from historic lows earlier in 2022, but prices remain elevated, according to data released today by Kelley Blue Book, a Cox Automotive company.
> How much is a new Mitsubishi Mirage (for instance) where you are?
Looking at a random local Mitsubishi dealer's website, it looks like a 2023 Mirage is around 19-20k. Which is cheaper than a Bolt, but if you qualify for the full federal rebate or have big state rebates it'd come out about the same price.
They do have a 2017 Mirage listed for $9,900, which is a lot less than the Bolt. The site doesn't say it's used.
> I'm talking about people who can afford a new ICE vehicle, but won't/can't pay the extra to get an EV.
To anyone who believes this: I strongly urge you to start tracking all your vehicle expenses. I've been doing this for over 15 years, and when I compare my reality with estimates/calculators online, the latter significantly overestimates the cost of repairs/maintenance.
As a concrete example, the last time I used the official government calculator to compare ICE vs a comparable sized EV (e.g. size of Honda Accord), it gave the breakeven point at 7 years, with the following assumptions:
1. Gas at $7/gal (you pick the price and the chart adjusts accordingly - if I picked a more reasonable price the breakeven point was way far out).
2. It estimated repairs/maintenance for ICE at over $2000/year starting from year 1.
Bullet 2 above is ridiculous. I have all my car related transactions. In over 20 years of owning cars, I never came close to $2000/year. Note that:
1. I buy old cars (typically 8 years old when I buy them) - so they need more repairs than the one that's 1-3 years old.
2. I'm not a car person. I do whatever my mechanic recommends. I follow the maintenance schedule in the manual. I'm not cheaping out on repairs.
Similarly, the Edmunds TCO calculator also spits out some insanely high repair numbers.
When you track the expenses like I do, it becomes hard to believe that the up front extra cost for an EV will ever be compensated by gasoline and repair costs.
EVs are, frankly, really expensive right now.
(I will note that when I buy cars, I do thorough research on "reliability", with the aim of minimizing repairs).
My 2012 leaf has never been in a shop other than a tire shop. I haven't even had to change brake pads.
My 2004 Volvo and 2003 ranger were constantly throwing errors I spent thousands chasing, some of which required replacing the same part twice. Oh and don't forget about oil changes.
Now the Leaf MSRP in 2012 was $36K. The equivalent sized Yaris was $17K. Currently, the used 2012 Yaris is worth $1600 more than a used 2012 Leaf (assuming 110K miles). When you factor in tax benefits, the extra repairs the Yaris would need, and adjust the cost for fuel, it's not obvious that the Leaf was a better buy. Also, the real maintenance/repair costs would be significantly lower than what I quoted above, because those repairs were due to buying fairly old cars.
(And then factor in how much I actually spent on purchasing cars in that time period because I bought used: $12500 and the Leaf looks even less appealing).
Of course, the Yaris is way better if going out of town.
Anecdata, but everyone I know who bought a Leaf till about 2016 said it was not usable as a primary car - too short a range in cold weather. One person said "I can't commute to work and back, and do errands, without recharging."
As for Volvo/Ranger: Do you not take some responsibility for those purchasing decisions? When I was buying my first car, I was told to stay away from BMW, Mercedes, and Volvo. I was a student and was told I'd never be able to afford even minor repairs. In fact, a friend who was an engineer in Austin at the time bought a used Mercedes, and soon after the AC stopped working. He never got it fixed - he would use it only in the winter while he drove his Corolla the rest of the year.
Regarding the Ranger: I'm looking at reliability scores and they're poor, even for brand new ones.
> Also, if you haven't changed brake pads, I wonder how many miles you've driven it. Was this your primary car?
I don't know about Leafs specifically, but brake pads usually last a long time in EVs due to regenerative braking. You might not use brakes at all if you can avoid doing any hard stops.
Individual experiences will vary. I would say that your strategy is generally optimal, all thought harder to execute right now as the market is bonkers.
Buying 8 year old cars is a lower cost strategy ss your filtering out the lemons. You can’t buy the shitty BMW 3 series as it’s been converted to a Coke can by that time. :) Even then you’re lucky as stuff starts breaking due to age and mileage.
I drove a 2003 Pilot until 2019 and it hit a bunch of repairs at 125k and then at 250k major repairs came up just due to age and frame rust. I still miss that car!
> Even then you’re lucky as stuff starts breaking due to age and mileage.
Things definitely do break, hence the repairs I've done. I don't think I got lucky 3 times in a row - I researched and bought known reliable vehicles, and always paid a mechanic to go over the car before I bought it.
I've posted actual repair numbers since 2012 in this comment:
I think more relevant is that many of the middle class do pay significant taxes, they just don't have enough federal tax liability to be able to claim the whole credit.
It's a shame the credit isn't refundable. It's weird that you can be too poor to get the whole subsidy.
Which end of the segment? Cells don't degrade uniformly, so refurbishing the existing battery is gonna be a couple hundred bucks to tear the car down and expose the battery, and then identity the bad cell and pop in a new one. At the other end of the segment, a battery for a Tesla that has more range than when it was new is gonna run you more than a couple grand. Depending on the heat it was exposed to, and number of cycles and really the age of the vehicle, it change when you'll have to replace the battery. It's worth pointing out that batteries do need to get replaced at some point, but also who knows if the used ICE car you're buying is gonna have problems passing smog, or if the cooling system's gonna crap out on you 3 miles after you drive it off the used car lot.
> Cells don't degrade uniformly, so refurbishing the existing battery is gonna be a couple hundred bucks to tear the car down and expose the battery, and then identity the bad cell and pop in a new one
This sounds great, for which EVs is this available?
"For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents [..] Battery packs can cost tens of thousands of dollars and represent up to 50% of an EV's price tag, often making it uneconomical to replace them.
While some automakers like Ford Motor Co (F.N) and General Motors Co (GM.N) said they have made battery packs easier to repair, Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) has taken the opposite tack with its Texas-built Model Y, whose new structural battery pack has been described by experts as having 'zero repairability.'"[0]
The cost to replace a Model Y battery is around $13K (no where near 50% of the cost of the vehicle). More than that, the battery will probably outlast the lifetime of the vehicle, with a design lifespan of approximately 500K miles.
Yes, eventually when the battery dies it won't be repaired as such - instead it is designed to be nearly 100% recyclable.
Similar to many Apple or Xbox repairs, they swap it for one they've previously refurbed and tested, then add yours to the pile to be refurbed for another customer rather than make you wait for your specific battery to go through the process.
Here's where right to repair is exceedingly important. Obviously if it were up to Tesla, you'd only be allowed to go to them for repairs, at their full markup. But here's the secret - they have a huge markup, but no monopoly on electrical engineering. Like the video shows, 3rd party repair shops can repair these things. It's not rocket science - you're thinking of a Elon Musk's other company, SpaceX.
But $5,000, down from $22,500, is still more than "a couple hundred bucks to hundred bucks to tear the car down and expose the battery, and then identity the bad cell and pop in a new one". Now, in my haste, I wrote "cell" when I mean "module", sorry about that. The car for which I'm referring to that job is at the bottom of the segment - a first generation Nissan Leaf. They first came out in 2010 and here's a 12 year old used one for $6k (https://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/ctd/d/redondo-beach-20...). It's almost guaranteed to have at least one bad module if you're buying something that particular car (they didn't have battery cooling systems that generation) and that old (simply due to the number of charge cycles).
The procedure for finding the and replacing the bad module is documented at:
If you take your Nissan Leaf to a shop that specializes in them, they'll likely have modules for cheap off salvaged cars, but we don't have access to those prices here. So let's say a refurbished battery module is anywhere from $60-250 and then kick $200 in labor to your cousin who's good with cars to watch those two videos and replace the bad module for you unless you're that cousin, then spend $250 on a battery module and buy yourself a nice voltmeter.
Official battery replacement jobs on a Nissan Leaf are going to run you much more (multiple thousands) but if you have a Nissan Leaf, or any electric car really, you should be aware that that's a total ripoff. Everyone knows you don't go to the dealer for repairs on an ICE unless you want to get ripped off, and the same is true for EVs.
If you actually follow what happened to Hoovie, that $5k job didn't work. He used that vehicle on one of their 'Car Trek' series and it had BMS errors and basically threw a fit because the batteries were unbalanced. Tesla is right to want the entire pack to be replaced, because having cells with two very different aging characteristics is bad for the battery overall.
Obviously there's some batteries that are tolerant of this (Prius' commonly have this repair on their NiMH batteries), but it's not universal.
Worth noting that just replacing cells on an old battery pack is kind of iffy. If the new cell has a different capacity and/or internal resistance than the old cells, it might not balance properly. Probably not an issue if it's within the range of what the BMS can deal with, but there is some risk that swapping cells might cause problems.
Having said that, I don't have first-hand experience refurbishing EV battery packs. Someone who does this kind of repair regularly might have a better idea of what you can or can't get away with.
Batteries last anywhere from 1000 to 2000 charge cycles, which for most EVs is 200,000 to 600,000 miles. And at the end of that you might expect the battery to hold 70-80 of its original charge, so even then it's not necessarily a write-off.
The engine on my car is 20 years old, and still pretty fine. Will an EV battery last as long (say 160K miles)?
Not trying to be adversarial - genuinely curious. I only buy old cars (median is 8 years old), and I keep them for a while (5-10 years), and I often wonder whether EV cars that old would be a decent buy or not.
We don't really know for current EVs how calendar aging will affect them, but we can look at older EVs with now-obsolete batteries. Some of them are fine, some of them aren't. Chevy famously did a recall on their Bolt battery packs, and a lot of Nissan Leaves had their batteries go bad. The problem with the Nissan Leaf is they only had passive cooling on the battery. So, lesson learned. Basically everyone does active cooling now.
In theory, lithium iron phosphate batteries should last a very long time. That's what I'd go for if you want the best longevity, but they also have a lower energy density and can be damaged if you charge them in below-freezing temperatures. (Presumably all the cars with LFP have smart charging systems that disable regen and refuse to charge when the battery is too cold, and hopefully most of them have battery heaters.)
With batteries there's this weird dynamic that if it last for a reasonably long time, by the time you need a replacement the new batteries /should/ be much cheaper and more energy dense. Unfortunately, there aren't really any companies making 3rd party aftermarket batteries for old cars. Maybe that will change, and maybe the industry will standardize on some generic battery module design. For now, the replacement battery options seem to be a) buy a replacement from the OEM, b) find a replacement from a low-mileage junkyard vehicle or c) reverse engineer the BMS and install an equivalent custom battery constructed from new or used cells/modules, possibly using some kind of custom-fabricated battery box. It'd be great if you could just walk in to any auto parts store and buy a replacement battery pack, but we're not there yet.
As I posted above, batteries typically last 1,000 to 2,000 cycles, which gives most EVs between 200,000 and 600,000 miles of battery life -- and at the end (barring going out with some sort of fault) you can still manage 70-80% of the original charge.
The prices have changed a lot since November 2022; Tesla became eligible for the $7,500 Federal tax credit again, and they dropped their prices significantly to qualify. Right now a base Model 3 is around $36k after tax credit.
Right, meaning there are a lot of car buyers who pay less than that. In many cases a lot less. I'm one of them(!)
The last time I bought a new car I paid $11k, although that was around five years ago. Since then, over many tens of thousands of miles, that vehicle has transported our family from A to B and back again.
I'd love to own an EV, but I can't afford to pay a significant premium for one.
If you don't need the extended range of a brand new battery, I think you'll be able to pick up a used one for cheap soon enough.
My parents bought a Tesla a few months ago because their Leaf's battery life fell below the point where they could get to work and back reliably on a single charge and they spent months waiting for a battery replacement (they're still waiting). If their supply problems continue, people are going to start dumping more and more used electrical cars and going back to gas or to companies that can actually keep up battery supply like Tesla.
Used Teslas are already on the market. Theres a used 2012 and 2014 the next city over from me for $25k and $34k, respectively. Doesn't seem too bad for a car that was over $100k when it was new.
That still sounds steep to me. 10 years old beta technology in a category where technology has been progressing very fast so that new (<<$100k) models are far superior vehicles, not to mention the "beware the third owner hellkat" issue.
Yeah but then have the issue known as "driving a Prius". Might not be a problem if you're in California. Hell that'll get you positive "saving the Earth" smug points. Elsewhere that might be an issue to be avoided at all costs though.
Prius is the most popular car for Uber, I don't think its virtue signaling (quite the opposite, if you happen to drive a Prius, people will just assume you are doing Uber on the side), just these people are trying to make money and a Prius is a good way to make Ubering cost effective.
I'd actually be quite happy to drive a Prius, I was just being hyperbolic. Some people would be afraid of being judged for driving for Uber and would reject a Prius just for that specific reason. But we can't control how everybody feels. Mainly it's just that lets not pretend that an old luxury car, BMW or Mercedes or otherwise, and a new Prius are in the same market segment. They may cost a similar dollar amount, but they're bought by different buyers.
A Prius perhaps wasn't the most relevant comparison. I might have been letting my disdain for for fancy cars influence my argument. Maybe one of those silly sporty looking Camrys would be more appropriate haha.
That said, I wouldn't trade my Prius for a Tesla (well I would, but I'd then trade it for a new Prius). Whatever image they present, they're good cars.
Don't get me wrong, Priuses are good cars, just that they have a stereotype associated with them these days given how successful they are in the ride share and taxi markets. I hope Toyota makes a good economy EV soon, but they've been obsessed with hydrogen for too long.
The biggest risk with those is the battery pack. If they haven't had a pack replacement under warranty since ~2016, they will have a much higher than average failure rate.
Third party repair is ~5-20k + shipment costs. Tesla is ~15-20k.
> If you don't need the extended range of a brand new battery [..]
My OH drove the best part of 200 miles, round trip, on the spur of the moment to pick me up at an airport late in the evening after my flight was badly delayed, she got to the airport just as I came through baggage reclaim so was at the airport less than 10 mins. That was just last week. By sheer coincidence I drove to pick her up at the same airport the week before, although at least I knew that journey was coming ahead of time.
What do used EV owners with smaller and/or degraded batteries say to each other in that scenario? "Sorry, I can't come and pick you up, the car's not charged?"
A car that can't manage to drive to a local airport and back in one go is exhibiting a fairly critical flaw, at least for people like us.
>My OH drove the best part of 200 miles, round trip, on the spur of the moment to pick me up at an airport late in the evening after my flight was badly delayed[ ...]
> A car that can't manage to drive to a local airport and back in one go is exhibiting a fairly critical flaw, at least for people like us.
Isn't this a standard trade-off? I have a sedan rather than a SUV or a pickup, and last year when I wanted to move some large items I couldn't. That's fine, because the other 99.5% of days I don't need that much capacity. Unless you frequently need to go on 200 mile trips on a whim, it's not as big of a dealbreaker than you think.
You can go to a supercharger after the first leg and spend 10-15 minutes there. It's really not the issue you'd think it is reading all the concern from people online. And Tesla batteries degrade much slower than you'd think based on experience with consumer electronics.
> It's really not the issue you'd think it is [..]
I appreciate that there are a lot of happy Tesla owners, indeed there are two in the office I'm working in this week, their Model 3s are parked outside. I had a ride in one recently, it was fun. Not something I'd buy, though.
Is it possible that EVs still aren't the good fit you think they are for a substantial proportion of price-sensitive consumers?
Also, the political landscape around EVs may still be evolving. This month the EU's policy to ban the sale of new combustion engine cars in the bloc by 2035 was substantially weakened after pressure from Germany[0], and the UK's policy is as a result - shall we say - "wobbling"?[1]
> Is it possible that EVs still aren't the good fit you think they are for a substantial proportion of price-sensitive consumers?
The reality is flipped around. The vast majority of consumers, even price sensitive ones, would be better served by an EV. The edge cases trotted out in conversations like this are the exception, not the norm.
New bolt is what, 20k after incentive? I would assume in 5 years those will be cheaper used. No one is selling 11k gas cars worth a damn last I checked, either, there just isn't a huge supply of used electrics at the moment.
Not that I'm telling you to buy an EV, but EV's are like 6% of (new)sales this year iirc, I expect next year is 7-8%, then 9-11%? After 10% of sales and all the growth is in EVs I expect the market to change quickly, like gas car sales to just fall off a cliff as legacy automakers really start to scramble. Well, at least in the US, seems China has a much higher EV share.
Anyways, yeah, probably somewhere in the 4-7 year range from now, there will be some good options in cheaper, used EVs for people, and probably more than just the Bolt that has decent range at low end new pricing.
Until their a substantial used inventory and more deliveries, sure, EVs are not attractive to the people you refer to. At least in the US.
There are cheap EVs. The Bolt costs $26,500, and that doesn't seem to include a rebate. The Leaf is $28k before tax credits. Yes, they are nowhere near $11k, but I'm not sure you can buy much of a car at below $20k these days.
Most people looking at EVs though are more interested in the average rather than below average prices, so the EV market tends to gravitate to the $40k-$60k price range to chase that demand.
Tesla's Investor Day was mostly about the ways they're working on reducing costs. They won't get to $11K anytime soon, but they might manage $25K, and that's still in the low end of the market for ICE cars these days.
They could probably get there if they wanted to, but the profitability for them wouldn't make it interesting enough, and the low end, where it really sells (i.e. outside of the USA), is crowded by Chinese car companies.
In one of Sandy Munro's videos, he said he thinks Tesla can manage costs of $19K. The size of the market increases dramatically as you go down the price curve, which makes a $6K profit per car plenty interesting.
That certainly seems to be what Tesla thinks at least, unless they were completely lying to investors about the volume they hoped to achieve.
Why invest 200 million USD to make 1 billion when you can invest the same to make 10 billion? The problem is that expanding isn’t free, you take the most probable business first. The low end is growing rapidly, but the players already there will ensure that Tesla doesn’t make $1k of profit per vehicle. They can’t compete with a Wuling Mini EV for $4k, or whatever BYD has up to the model 3 price point.
I don't see many Wulings for sale in the US, and Tesla is selling plenty of Model 3 in China.
Tesla did take the most profitable business first. Now they're expanding to the mass market. You might disagree that it's the best strategy, but it's the one they're following; if you don't believe me, just watch Investor Day.
I've never bought a brand new car (EV or otherwise), and probably never will. The value proposition just isn't there when cars lose double digit percentages of their value the second they're driven off the lot, and drop down to like half their initial cost or more after only a few years.
The depreciation curve is steeper in some manufacturers than others. It's overstating the case to say, e.g., that Toyotas lose half their value in only a few years. I also have only ever bought used vehicles but my most recent Subaru was ~6 years old and still more than 50% of MSRP of the current, newer model year.
This is only true for people with a certain amount of spare money to pay the extra, since EVs are more expensive to purchase.
"The new EVs cost an average of $65,041 in November [2022], according to Kelley Blue Book, while gas cars averaged $48,681 that month"[0]
[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/electric-vehicles-prices-exp...