
Electric vehicle price is rising, but cost-per-mile is falling - jseliger
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/09/the-average-price-of-electric-cars-rose-in-2016-but-its-not-a-backwards-trend/
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andrewtbham
This title is very misleading... The reason for the "price increase" is the
declining popularity of the once most popular BEV, the Nissan Leaf, and the
increasing popularity of the Tesla Model S. Leaf sales got crushed when gas
prices fell in 2015. The reason is the Model S is a luxury car, the Leaf is a
compact car.

[http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-
scorecard/](http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/)

~~~
majormajor
I don't see that as misleading. The most successful EV has been an extremely
expensive one. There hasn't been a market for truly cheap EVs.

This is probably because EVs are amazing if you're a well-off suburban home
owner who can charge at home, and still OK if you're a well-off urbanite with
charging stations at work and in your building, and practically useless if
you're a less-well-off renter in an older apartment building. So you have
range anxiety hurting the cheap ones for the well-off set, and feasibility
blocking all of them for the not-as-well-off set.

~~~
andrewtbham
The reason it's misleading is that the cost of batteries is falling
dramatically 14-16% per year. This headline will leave people with the
opposite impression... that battery costs are going up. I clicked on it
because I was like... what the heck? the cost of cars is falling (think model
3) Then it basically reverse course and explains that battery costs per KWh
are falling but doesn't really explain why the costs went up... because the
most popular cars were in different classes.

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ProfessorLayton
Its interesting to see new prices go up while used electric car prices are
falling so incredibly rapidly, that its caused me to seriously consider one.

A barely used (20k miles) 2014 BMW i3 can be bought for ~16k, and an equally
used Nissan Leaf can be bought for half of that!

My Honda only has 75K miles on it, so I really don't need to upgrade just yet,
but I'd jump on these deals in a heartbeat if I was in the market.

~~~
madengr
Yep, bought a 2015 Leaf with 19k miles for $8,500. Will never buy a gasoline
car again.

~~~
grecy
Wow, that's cheap!

Does the mileage drop badly in very cold weather?

How long does it take to charge?

~~~
FigBug
I live in Vitoria, BC. It doesn't get that cold here, but it was below
freezing I lost maybe 10% of range. It takes maybe 3 hours to change with my
level 2 charger.

~~~
grecy
Awesome, thanks.

For that kind of money, I am thinking about it for a Yukon commuter car! - so
nice not to have to leave it plugged in all day or let it warm up for 20mins
when it's -40 !

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eknkc
The title is misleading. Cost per mile is calculated as the initial vehicle
price over range.

It would be interesting to see if electricity cost per mile driven was also
falling.

~~~
Animats
Yes, that's kind of a strange metric.

The discouraging thing in the article is "Although the global EV market set a
record for number of sales in 2016, market growth actually slowed to 60
percent in 2016 from 77 percent in 2015."

~~~
Retric
Electric cars are ~2% of the global sales and compounding 50% growth would hit
100% in 10 years which seems inanely optimistic.

I suspect they will hit 10% fairly quickly, but take much longer to break 50%.
The really interesting transition is when gas stations start disappearing.

~~~
FigBug
It's already happening, last one os gone from downtown Vancouver:
[http://bc.ctvnews.ca/last-gas-vancouver-s-sole-remaining-
dow...](http://bc.ctvnews.ca/last-gas-vancouver-s-sole-remaining-downtown-gas-
station-for-sale-1.3363976)

It's due to property values, not electric cars, but it would be interesting to
see if people switch to electrics because of disappearing gas stations.

