A recent survey shows not all Canadians are ready to make the switch to an electric vehicle as they have concerns about charging stations, cold weather and battery life.
same data headline: ‘Almost 50% of Canadians say they will consider buying an electric vehicle as their next car’
I think they are trying to denote the trend. According to autotrader (the source of the headline claim), it was 68% two years ago and has been dropping by about 10% a year. Pretty sure the Musk factor sucked the wind out of Tesla’s sales, and then there are the stories from the article where people get saddled with a massive 20K repair bill after 8 years of ownership. I’m sure that’s an outlier, but you just don’t get bills that high with a gas car. And as much as the government wants us all using them by 2035, they have done sweet bugger all to build up the massive charging infrastructure required to get people over their range anxiety. That doesn’t instill much confidence in prospective buyers.
Unsaid part of headline: “Most Canadians can’t afford a new car, and many that can don’t own a house and have nowhere to charge”.
Electric cars, as they currently are, are a rich person’s solution to climate change.
This.
My next car will be whatever used car I think will get me through 4 more years. Maybe the one after that will be electric. But until people can walk onto a lot and drive away in an EV, or, especially, find one on Kijiji, then the number of people whose next car is an EV is going to remain low.
The fact that the number of people considering it right now is anywhere near 50% is a big deal.
TBF, I was watching a YouTube video yesterday where he mentionned that there’s actually a decent used EV market now. We bought a used car ˜10 months ago, and EVs were out of the question with autotrader listings in Ontario starting at ˜$40K for any EV in good driving condition. Now you can find some all the way down to ˜$20K.
Now you can find some all the way down to ~$20K
Still that’s like 3-4 times most people’s budgets for cars, if they even have a budget.
Now you can find some all the way down to ˜$20K.
That’s gotta be regionally specific, because there are no full electrics, used or otherwise, around here for under $30k.
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But until people can walk onto a lot and drive away in an EV,
That’s the main reason my current car isn’t an EV.
When my previous car got written off by insurance, I needed a replacement ASAP, and wasn’t in a position to wait 12-48 weeks to order one that I couldn’t even test drive before putting my money down.
.
And yes, transit, bla bla… they won’t let me take my toolboxes and ladder on the bus - even if it went where I need to go.
They’re way too expensive for most people. Even taking any savings into account from not needing gas, less maintenance, and rebates.
A lot of them are about double just buying a gas car sticker price wise.
I want an electric car but it’s hard to justify it.
Not to mention a lot of people can’t afford (or otherwise can’t justify) the expense of a new car in general. We’re just starting to see some of the very early Leafs drop below $10,000, so there is hope, but the range/dollar needs to improve a bit to make sense for most people.
A lot of that comes down to how much you drive it. I did a post a few weeks back that showed a brand new Kia Niro EV could be had for about $200 more per month than a brand new Kia Forte, something like $1000 vs $1200 total cost once you factored in gas for 20,000km a year in driving. The difference would be way more if you only drive 5000km per year, and the difference goes away completely if you drive 30,000km a year.
The problem is that a lot of people can’t afford either Forte or a Niro, and even more can’t afford the up-front cost of the Niro, but might be able to swing a Forte.
And the Forte is the cheapest thing they make; Kia, like most OEMs, killed their subcompact offering (the Rio, in this case) in hopes of driving buyers to more expensive options, like compact crossovers. EVs are the worst, but not the only, part of price-inflation in the automotive sector.
Should we see a repeat of 2008, a lot of OEMs are going to be caught without cost-effective offerings. Good luck moving $80K crossovers in a credit crunch.
I live car free, fix the fucking transit!
This would do so much more for the environment than every car converting to an EV.
The underlying plot of this article is rather obnoxious. This Smith guy’s 2016 Hyundai hybrid broke and the dealer gave him a $15k quote to fix it, which was then resolved by Hyundai corporate. The headline statement is one small paragraph, and irrelevant to this random story.
To discuss the headline, though, I think it all stems from misinformation more than anything. I have an EV in the charging desert of north east Saskatchewan. It’s a fantastic car and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy one again. Yes, you do have to plan ahead a bit if you’re going longer distances, but the slight inconvenience is well worth the savings in fuel. Winter range can be reduced by around 50% at -30, but again, you plan around that. ICE vehicles don’t perform well at those temperatures either.
Even then, the trips the vast majority of people make are well within typical EV ranges and there are often several charging option wherever the vehicle is parked.
Misinformation, and a lack of experience are absolutely massive.
People don’t know how simple an EV is until they have one for a while.
Because we’ll have proper rail infrastructure then right?
Because we’ll have proper rail infrastructure then right?
