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Cheap Gas Fuels Switch From Electric Cars To SUVs
schwit1 points out news that's sure to clash with Earth Day narratives: drivers who bought hybrid and electric cars are switching back to SUVs at a higher rate than ever. Quoting:
According to Edmunds.com, about 22 percent of people who have traded in their hybrids and EVs in 2015 bought a new SUV. The number represents a sharp increase from 18.8 percent last year, and it is nearly double the rate of 11.9 percent just three years ago. Overall, only 45 percent of this year's hybrid and EV trade-ins have gone toward the purchase of another alternative fuel vehicle, down from just over 60 percent in 2012. Never before have loyalty rates for alt-fuel vehicles fallen below 50 percent. ... Edmunds calculates that at the peak average national gas price of $4.67/gallon in October 2012, it would take five years to break even on the $3,770 price difference between a Toyota Camry LE Hybrid ($28,230) and a Toyota Camry LE ($24,460). At today's national average gas price of $2.27/gallon, it would take twice as much time (10.5 years) to close the same gap.
For most people, especially ones with NEW cars, the cost of fuel is such a small portion of TCO that gas mileage is almost inconsequential within reason. People get psychotic when gas swings one way or another because people are idiots, who cannot ignore the 20-80 dollars they spent today in favor of focusing on the 500 dollars they pay every month.
My Camry Hybrid is quieter, smoother, and has over 30 extra HP compared to the 4 cyl Camry. You don't ONLY get improved mileage from most hybrids. They should be comparing the cost of the hybrid vs. the V6 model when calculating years to make up cost (not a perfect comparison, but much closer). They are just skewing statistics...
1) Combine two things that are sort of similar but not really - e.g. EVs and hybrids or tablets and e-ink e-readers
2) Make a statistical claim about the combined group - 'People are leaving EVs and hybrids", "Tablets and E-readers bad for sleep/eyes"
3) Forget to mention one of the two in the headline - 'People dump EVs', 'E-readers bad for sleep/eyes"
By combining the two, this report doesn't really tell us anything useful. I'd love to know the different rates of people abandoning EV or hybrids, as I think they are two very different propositions.
Hybrids, at the end of the day, are simply a different way of building efficient petrol/diesel powered cars. From what I've heard that efficiency has been a lot less in real life, with milage claims for things like the Prius not really living up to the hype. With ever more efficient petrol engines on the market, and gas prices so low, the efficiency improvements have to be pretty significant to make a big difference and to offset the higher cost of buying many hybrids.
EVs on the other hand are a totally different beast, and the reasons people might give up on them are different. Are people buying EVs and then finding range is more of a problem than they thought? Did they have problems finding charing points? Was overnight, at-home charging not good enough for them? Etc, etc.
In addition, this report talks about the number of people who are trading in their EVs/Hybrids for something else. But that doesn't really tell us anything about how much people like EVs and Hybrids as it only includes people who are switching. It doesn't provide any analysis of how many people are keeping their EVs for longer.
What's most annoying is that there are genuinely interesting questions to be asking about the EV and hybrid market, but this data isn't really answering any of them well.
Paul Leader
No, stupid people think that buying a $60k electric car to save money makes more sense than buying a $20k Civic.
But it would appear that they've now realized what a load of hype electric cars were, and wised up.
And keep in mind that the EV owners, who do not pay gas tax, are driving relatively heavy vehicles.
Chevy Volt (small car) weighs more than a Honda CRV (SUV)
Tesla S (sedan) weighs more than a Ford F-150 (full-size truck)
My point was really that electric cars are only one part of the solution. If you don't look at the whole system, you may be just exchanging one kind of pollution for another. If you can get clean energy to power your electric car, then you're doing it right. But if you're exchanging gasoline for coal to power your car, you're not helping as much as you think you are.
It's like all of those people claiming ethanol is such a great fuel because it's clean burning and renewable. What they don't understand is that many of the new ethanol plants in the heartland burn tons of coal to produce that ethanol. So the ethanol they produce isn't what I would call as much of a "net positive" as other alternatives.
Exactly. progressives are right, conservatives are wrong, and there's absolutely no need to address anyone else's issues because Truth. Which is exactly what the GP was complaining of, but with respect to both extremes.
Meanwhile the people actually involved purchased a hybrid before switching to an SUV, which suggests that they're neither stereotypically conservative nor stereotypically progressive. There's valuable objective information embedded in that problem, yet you want to focus on which of the stereotypes is superior to the other.
Way to miss the point, as well as a shining opportunity to address the real world concerns and behavior of the 'middle.'
None of these vehicles have a substantial impact on roads, though. Heavy trucking accounts for the vast majority of road wear.
That said, I have no problem with paying to help maintain the roads even if my contribution to their wear is practically nonexistent. I benefit from our highway infrastructure because even if I never drive on them, I almost certainly use products and commodities that are transported over them.
Keep the gas tax, maybe even increase it, to pay for the problems that fossil fuel consumption causes.
Add a new, independent road maintenance fee that's based on vehicle weight and miles driven.
=Smidge=