Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The EV tax credit is mostly a credit for the wealthy. First you must pay $7,500 in income taxes to even get the full credit and secondly look up the demographics of the typical EV driver. Example the Ford Focus electric goes to a household with a salary of almost $200,000 a year. The Tesla product is even higher. After all these are $100k cars here.
Come on...There is a total cost to run the government. If one guy gets to pay less of his share, someone else must pay more - it's really very simple. Whether it's to you for a few thousand for a Volt or a trillion to the "super-rich" someone needs to pick up the slack.
The EV tax credit is mostly a credit for the wealthy. First you must pay $7,500 in income taxes to even get the full credit and secondly look up the demographics of the typical EV driver. Example the Ford Focus electric goes to a household with a salary of almost $200,000 a year. The Tesla product is even higher. After all these are $100k cars here.
Tax credit doesn't apply to me - I bought an EV "like new" for less than a new one would have been after factoring in the tax credit. 6 years and almost 200k miles later, I still feel I made the right decision.
Given the fact that the cheapest new EV qualifying for this tax credit (by battery kWh rating) starts around $30k and just goes up from there, I wouldn't expect the annual income of the average buyer to be below $100k. Would you?
I can't speak for Tesla, as I haven't bought their product, nor do I personally know any Tesla drivers. They very well could make 200k+ per year. For a $70k car (imagining these stats were taken before the Model 3's release) I'd expect it.
I see your point and I guess you could define someone as wealthy by their income, but most of these people are in higher income areas and still just keeping up in the rat race. Everything is more expensive - housing, electricity, food, HOA, child care.
You definitely wouldn't feel "rich" in CA as a would-be home or car buyer making a combined $200k between two full time workers and having two kids. Now, a long time homeowner enjoying Prop 13 might!
My commute goes past the Tesla factory in Fremont, CA. I can't throw a rock without hitting two of them.
Musk's foresight in taking over a small corner of NUMMI, then growing into the rest of the facility was infinite. You couldn't ask for a better market for the damn things.
And while we are at it, get rid of the exorbitant taxes that people pay at the gas pump, right? Oops. No, that can't be right because then gasoline would be even cheaper than it is right now, and would kick the "tipping point" longer into the future.
You mean the taxes used to (allegedly) fix roads? Um sure. Vehicles should be taxed in proportion to the damage they do to the roads (mileage, weight, etc...)
Tax credit doesn't apply to me - I bought an EV "like new" for less than a new one would have been after factoring in the tax credit. 6 years and almost 200k miles later, I still feel I made the right decision.
Given the fact that the cheapest new EV qualifying for this tax credit (by battery kWh rating) starts around $30k and just goes up from there, I wouldn't expect the annual income of the average buyer to be below $100k. Would you?
I can't speak for Tesla, as I haven't bought their product, nor do I personally know any Tesla drivers. They very well could make 200k+ per year. For a $70k car (imagining these stats were taken before the Model 3's release) I'd expect it.
I see your point and I guess you could define someone as wealthy by their income, but most of these people are in higher income areas and still just keeping up in the rat race. Everything is more expensive - housing, electricity, food, HOA, child care.
You definitely wouldn't feel "rich" in CA as a would-be home or car buyer making a combined $200k between two full time workers and having two kids. Now, a long time homeowner enjoying Prop 13 might!
Average Tesla buyer household makes $270k for the S and over $500k for the X. As I said even the Ford Focus electric had an average of $200k income level.
It's a wealthy mans game. (vast majority, like 90%, are males as well)
Yes, a household earning $200k+ has it easy. If one chooses to spend the majority on their housing to live close by at least they have that option. Or you could be this guy, spending four hours a day commuting.
Average Tesla buyer household makes $270k for the S and over $500k for the X. As I said even the Ford Focus electric had an average of $200k income level.
It's a wealthy mans game. (vast majority, like 90%, are males as well)
Yes, a household earning $200k+ has it easy. If one chooses to spend the majority on their housing to live close by at least they have that option. Or you could be this guy, spending four hours a day commuting.
Well, I don't think I can dispute the numbers. I don't have any data that says otherwise and they sound plausible.
I think the sweet spot on the west coast is to have the good paying job but spend a few years single and saving before starting a family. By a few years I mean like eight. 22 y/o fresh from college and don't get married until you're 30. It takes a loooong time to save up, pulling that slingshot back as far as you can, so you can fling yourself far enough to get past the high barrier to entry (cost) in the housing market.
This type of income is restricted to a few STEM majors, so if you are born with the wrong "passion" in life, you may very well exclude yourself from living in the city. Unless you want to live with 40 other people.
At least, that's the way things seemed while I was out in the Bay Area last year.
To address the actual title of this thread, let me guess when / what the tipping point is for EV adoption.
I am going to define the "tipping point" as when 50% of new vehicle purchases are electric. It seems about 17 million new vehicles are sold in the U.S. last year, so about 8-8.5 million would be half. I think we are currently at an annualized rate of 360,000 / year that are EVs.
If we assume 50% year over year growth in EVs sold, it would take ~ 8 years to reach the 50% mark. 30% growth would take 12 years. Although Tesla is building out battery production supply, there isn't clear evidence of other manufacturers building out supply at a high rate that would make any significant difference for 5 years or so. So hard to say when the tipping point will (or would) happen, my guess would be in 10-12 years.
Now that's all assuming demand meets or exceeds supply. And the quality of the EV is going to have to increase to capture more of the market. As everyone mentions, the flaws in EVs (currently) won't allow them to capture 80% + of the market.
Here are my list of current benefits of EVs and downsides:
Benefits:
Faster acceleration
Quieter
Fuel savings (say 1/2 of what you pay in gas)
Less maintenance costs (as EVs become more established)
Quickly plug in and charge at home for 95% of the time
Sense of feeling you are making a positive environmental decision (vs buying a new ICE, you are).
Negatives
Road trip charging time.
Cost
Cost will come down over time as battery costs come down (they will). Charging time is the main one, as many upthread have mentioned. Certainly many people will buy an EV right now with Tesla's ranges and charging rates, but how many? At what point would 50% of people be willing to buy an EV?
Let's try to guess. Basically, the positives have to outweigh the negatives. As the cost of the vehicles comes down a bit, some will see the benefits as outweighing the road trip charging times. First people who don't really road trip, or aren't in a hurry. But how many would be willing to charge for 30 min every 3-4 hrs? Maybe 20%?
I would guess if charging could get down to 10-15 minutes every 3-4 hrs of driving on a road trip, that would take U.S. demand over 50% easily. The other benefits would be far outweigh the perceived downside of waiting an extra 5-10 minutes on long road trips that only happen a few times a year.
So, if EV growth would get to 50% supply in ~10 years, would the battery technology allow that charging performance in that time? I think it would.
So my guess is 10 years.
The first two of your benefits are not universally applicable to all EV's, just a few expensive variants.
For example, the Chevy Bolt or Leaf isn't going to be winning any drag races. There are plenty of ICE's that are just as fast for far less money.
EVs may be quieter in theory, but engines and NVH these days can make an ICE engine feel like it's not even running. Wind, traffic, and tire noise is still the primary noise coming into the cabin of a modern car. I wouldn't call a Smart EV or BMW i3 quiet on the highway. Again, it's all based on how you design the car, and it's not necessarily powertrain dependent.
The tradeoff for "less maintenance cost" is huge maintenance cost when it comes time to replace something as EV components are best replaced as entire assemblies and not repaired. There are also fewer people who can repair them, so maintenance cost is essentially at dealer rates. Again, the maintenance cost on a modern ICE car is pretty negligible. Oil changes are less than $60 and only needed every 10K miles or so. Filters are $30 and needed every 30K miles. Transmission and radiator fluids are the most expensive and happen once every 100K miles. As with anything else, tires will be the largest expense.
The sense of "making a positive environmental decision" is essentially worthless to the vast majority of buyers as the auto markets indicate. Driving a car is still environmentally worse than walking, biking, or riding public transportation so you should not feel you're making any more of an environmentally positive impact than a guy who choses to drive an F-150 instead of an F-250. It's still selfish gluttony either way.
So essentially the benefits are down to fuel cost and having a full charge at home. The negatives are charging times and upfront cost. That being said I think EV vs ICE is going to forever coexist like ICE's and diesels. One isn't necessarily going to overtake the other.
The EV tax credit is mostly a credit for the wealthy. First you must pay $7,500 in income taxes to even get the full credit and secondly look up the demographics of the typical EV driver. Example the Ford Focus electric goes to a household with a salary of almost $200,000 a year. The Tesla product is even higher. After all these are $100k cars here.
Actually the tax credit can go to the leasing company who takes the tax break cost off the cap cost of the car if you lease it, making cars like the Leaf eligible for the tax break even if you as a buyer don't make a lot of money. You could get $0 down, $199/month leases on them, and 0 down $99/mo leases on the Fiat 500 or Spark EV. When I originally leased my Volt, I wasn't making over $100k at all. But the $269/mo lease rate was available to me still.
Average Tesla buyer household makes $270k for the S and over $500k for the X. As I said even the Ford Focus electric had an average of $200k income level.
I have a number of friends that own Teslas, a couple that are co-workers and I can tell you they don't make over $100k per year. When I looked into the Focus EV, I could have had it for 0 down, and $299/month. No need to make $100k per year to qualify for that lease. I skipped on it because it's a poor example of an EV having no more range than a Spark EV and less storage space as the battery takes up much of the hatch area. Drives nice, though.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
