logoalt Hacker News

Danox • today at 4:07 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

One state makes up over a third of all EV sold in the country EV’s have a way to go in the United States. Hybrids seem to be doing a lot better in recent times.

California accounts for roughly 35% of all U.S. EV sales, though some estimates put its share near 40%.


Replies

epistasis • today at 5:34 PM

That's certainly a way to view the data, but it's a way that ignores the trajectory of the technology and sets up The Big Three for complete failure.

The Big Three have not figured out how to make compelling EVs, without a doubt, but it's not the technology that's the problem, it's the leadership's product choices and failure of implementation.

Meaning that the entire industry will be pushed farther and farther behind in the race, only to be completely disrupted.

This will happen far slower than the transition from Palm to iOS-style phones, because the lifetime of cars is far longer than phones and are far larger investments, but the trend is inevitable. EVs are superior on so many different fronts that there's ~0 chance that gas and diesel engines persist except for a tiny fraction of future market share.

US manufacturers are trying to delay the transition as long as possible, which only ensures their own doom.

➕ show 1 reply
toomuchtodo • today at 5:34 PM

California is the world’s fourth largest economy, so this tracks. Whether or not flyover country gets EVs is immaterial to the overall US situation. They can pay forward curve petrol prices if they so choose (“freedom!”), or find a suitable EV if that is a more suitable choice for their needs, unless federal policy returns to assist with purchasing. I am hopeful, concerning recent regime change, that federal EV incentives come back to enable folks to buy affordable EVs (because we should be optimizing for affordable zero emission mobility for all, imho), but only time will tell.

Wyoming‘s population of 600k people is less than one percent of total US population, for example. Californians buy about half that number of EVs per year (~300k-400k).

➕ show 1 reply