It's amazing how many people out there pretend that they believe that Tesla is the only EV, or the best one, or the best value for money, or the best EV for the environment, and that boycotting Tesla would be some kind of hypocrisy if you believe in humanity's objective not to destroy our habitat.
In the US market, two Tesla models are the most popular EV models and Tesla is the most popular EV brand, but that is true pretty much only in the US.
The most popular EV brand in the world is BYD. Here in HK they start from 209 000 HKD, that's about 27 000 USD, but it's a middle-class executive car, it's not the cheapest or most cost-efficient EV.
If you're in India, you can buy a Tata EV for 2 lakh. That's 200 000 INR ≈ 2 300 USD. Yes, two thousand. Now, I don't know what it would take to bring a Tata up to US code, but of those 40 000 USD in difference between the Tata and the starting price (before federal subsidies) for a Tesla, I doubt all of it is safety features.
M. Grégoire
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •How are BYD EVs as cars? Are they well-made, comfortable, pleasant to drive?
We don't have any around here.
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛
in reply to M. Grégoire • • •@M. Grégoire I don't drive cars or ride cars much, but when we visited folks in Guangzhou last time, they insisted on driving us to the train station, so I've been riding a BYD once, for half an hour.
It feels like riding a Volkswagen or a Saab, just a normal car, nice seats, good road comfort. Nothing to remark on.
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •The difference between the *price* of a Tesla, 42 000 USD, and the *price difference* between a Tesla and a Tata, 39 700 USD, is pretty much a rounding error.
No, wait, they call them "2 lakh EVs" because they cost under 2 lakh. You can get a Tata for 1 lakh = 100 000 INR ≈ 1 100 USD.
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •On the US market, the Nissan Leaf starts at just below 30 kUSD before subsidies. Is that the cheapest there is?
There are still diesels for 10 kUSD, right? When will EVs come down to those prices?
Mike
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •There are cheaper electric cars but they tend to be speed limited, and/or two seater.
The cheapest ICE car in the UK isn't much cheaper! It's the Dacia Sandrero at about £14500.
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like jam or bootlaces
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •"still diesels for 10 kUSD"
new? No, I don't think so. I think mid-to-high teens (kUSD) is the lowest for any new car in the US
like jam or bootlaces
in reply to like jam or bootlaces • • •From Edmonds:
"With a base price of $16,695, the 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage is the most affordable model among subcompact cars."
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clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛
in reply to like jam or bootlaces • • •like jam or bootlaces
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •I wonder what "modern" means here.
My recollection is that the lead up to Dieselgate was the introduction of particle emission limits in the US more stringent than anything used in the European market.
This created a gap of several years in which no new Diesel-powered passenger cars were sold in the US.
The only way to meet these limits was to run the engines lean (higher air to fuel), thus burning carbon more completely, but at the expense of higher in-cylinder NOx production, to be cleaned up with Diesel exhaust fluid (DEF).
Computerized compliance avoidance with less or no DEF was the central to the cheat, but it was all driven by (carbon) particles.
like jam or bootlaces
in reply to like jam or bootlaces • • •to your wider point, I see a lot of Teslas around, but we have a Bolt and have thus learned to recognize them, to distinguish them from their similarly sized and shaped Chevy siblings.
Cars at close neighbors also include a Leaf and an Ioniq, and a little further out, a few Rivians.
I think the Bolt was by far the cheapest, in the mid 20s?
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clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛
in reply to like jam or bootlaces • • •@like jam or bootlaces Interesting!
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European…
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californ…
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_S…
It would seem that in 2005 (I think that's around the time I'm thinking of, rather than 2010), the EU was using Euro 4 and many US states were using CARB LEV as the minimum standard.
Euro 4 allows 0.30 g/km hydrocarbons + NOx, while CARB LEV allows 0.390 g/mi ≈ 0.24 g/km non-methane gases + NOx. Not apples-to-apples comparable and not vastly stricter, but you seem to be remembering correctly that it was quite a bit stricter.
Dieselgate wasn't so much about US standards though. VW was breaking all the standards: "the vehicles emitted up to 40 times more NOx in real-world driving"
The reason was like you said, they skimped on the catalytic reduction system and went for one that didn't work so well on a lean mix: "the system failed to combine lower fuel consumption with compliant NOx emissions, and Volkswagen chose around 2006 to program the Engine Control Unit (ECU) to switch from lower fuel consumption and high NOx emissions to low-emission compliant mode when it detected an emissions test"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswag…
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •firebreathingduck
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •In the US passenger diesel vehicles are rare. The cheapest new gasoline (petrol) vehicles are about 17kUSD, and those are uncommon. Most other vehicle start in the 20-25kUSD range.
But there are plenty of electric options to compete with Tesla that are the same price or cheaper.
Kermode
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •Likely not cheap things like adding marker lights, but more intrinsic things like crumple zones and shatter proof glass? I don't know.
40k is a huge difference though, obviously.
Mans R
in reply to Kermode • • •clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 likes this.
Kermode
in reply to Mans R • • •No more than 40k, for sure.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • •@clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 OTOH, here in Italy they sell electrical things that are legally a small motorbike but have 4 wheels (and a steering wheel) rather than a car, and they cost something like 6k - 8k EUR (compared to 2k - 4k for the petrol version): I wonder whether those are a better comparison for the Tata EV
(they are still significantly more expensive, but less so than a fancy car like the Tesla used to be)
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