by JimsonYang 6 hours ago
>Americans watch the rest of the world getting better, cheaper, ...
If we wanted cheap cars, there needs to be demand to justify building giga factories of EVs.
There just wasnt sufficient consumer demand to justify the giga factory investments
China CAN generate demand for EVs because they have the political ability to
1) force gas restricted cars to only drive on certain days of the week
2) create a brutal lottery to get a license plate to legally drive a gas car
3) provide a bunch of subsidies
The US has only done option 3.
Out govt system literally doesnt have the political will to do these brutal but effective policy changes
If we ignore the cultural issues with Americans where some places buying an EV is considered "gay" (because that is inheritently negative to them) then we can easily point to the hostile lobbying tactics and government capitulation via bought congressmen. Go look at the historical hostilities Tesla faced when first trying to take off.
If I still lived in the US, I'd be hesitant to buy an EV because the infrastructure state to state to support charging wasn't great when I was last there. In Europe, you can road trip with your EV no problem.
Let's not entirely blame consumers for not being incentivised enough. Let's face it the US has been actively against EVs. You mention subsidies, haven't those even seen regressions in EV and solar panel subsidies? It's ridiculous.
If the US government quit subsidizing oil companies and traditional automakers, there’d be more incentive to make good, affordable EVs, and more incentive for Americans to buy them.
"Americans where some places buying an EV is considered "gay""
They would jump on EVs in heartbeat if Trump told them to.
New car sales in Europe in 2026 are approaching 50% EV with essentially none of the above. Europe has had generous EV subsidies in the past, but in 2026 those are mostly (but not completely) gone.
4) add taxes to effectively double price of gasoline
The price of electricity in Europe is also approximately double that of the US.
This is not true, it varies widely between countries, just as it varies between states in the US.
The average price of electricity in Europe is 29 cents. The average price in the US is 17 cents. Both have a very wide variance. I'm not sure if there's anywhere in Europe that pay more than PG&E customers in the US...
EV’s do well in parts of the U.S. with good charging infrastructure. One of the challenges is this country is huge and there are large numbers of people in places where infrastructure or other factors make it difficult to drive an EV. Probably half the people in this country live in rural areas and smaller towns where the charging infrastructure doesn’t exist and doesn’t make much sense because no one drives an EV. It’s a chicken and egg problem.
Housing is another complication that’s related to the charging situation. It’s only worthwhile to own an EV if you can charge at home. There are people who make it work with only public chargers, but it’s a major PITA. That usually means owning a home where you can install a charger. That requirement excludes a lot of people.
It’s not that everyone wants a gas guzzler. There are real challenges here.
99% of the American population lives within 50 miles of an Interstate. All of the interstates have good fast charger coverage in 2026.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/dmmgl5/78_of_the_c...
Edit: that link is awful. So my 99% claim is also likely off a bit too. But I bet it's not off by a lot.
For the most part, but who is going to get on the highway to charge their car if they weren’t already headed that way? And 50 miles is a long way to go. It’s unreasonable to expect anyone to drive 100 miles to charge (and waste all that range). Just get a gas car at that point.
Youre right, i forgot to add
4) europeans are environemtally conscious
Americans however like their gas guzzling F150s.
The reason I did the original comment was I know for a time the major car companies did a huge push into EVs.
Like the ford 150 lightning, chevy bolt and mustang mach E. But they stopped manufacturing them due to weakened sales and profitability.
Its a vicious feedback loop of consumer adoption, high car prices, and capital investment which makes us feel stuck
*edit this is based on what I heard from a GM exec during a lecture visit while at UofM
> Americans however like their gas guzzling F150s.
Pickup trucks have always made up between 10% and 20% of vehicles on the road in America; it's the SUV that has picked up from next to nothing in 1980 to almost half of all new vehicles now, while the sedan has plunged from 80% to about 25% of new vehicles today.
A big part of that transition to larger SUVs (which are not F150s) was the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) Standards, which sought to make cars more fuel efficient. They regulated based on the size of the vehicle, so larger vehicles (including both the SUV and the F150) became cheaper to manufacture, while smaller cars were squeezed out of the market as meeting CAFE became too expensive. Larger cars also perform better on safety tests and have an easier time passing onerous safety regulations. Had environmental and safety regulations been handled differently, or if there weren't any, Americans might well be driving more fuel-efficient smaller coupes and sedans.
That said, the Chevy Bolt and Mustang Mach-E are, in fact, being manufactured—the Bolt was recently brought back, and the Mustang Mach-E was never discontinued. The Ford F150 Lightning has been discontinued. Tesla outsells all of them by far.
> Larger cars also perform better on safety tests
That's only true if we're limiting the discussion to the safety of the people inside said car. Quoting one of the first sources I could find: https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/06/big-cars-feel-...
a study found a 500 kilogram increase in vehicle weight, which could mean the difference between an SUV and a sedan, correlated with a 70% higher fatality risk
[after the 2003 bumper height-matching standard] The likelihood of SUVs causing fatalities to drivers in other cars reduced from being 132% more likely for a collision with an SUV in the early 90s, to 28% more likely by 2016
A mere 10 centimetre increase in front-end height can elevate the risk of pedestrian death by 22%, with impacts more likely occurring at critical injury points like the chest or head
Children are eight times more likely to die when struck by an SUV compared to lighter and smaller cars
> Pickup trucks have always made up between 10% and 20% of vehicles on the road in America
This is false. It's true today that sales are in that range. It is not remotely true that actual ownership is 10%-20% today nor that it was in the past
I don't think the jump in EV sales in Europe are primarily driven by environment consciousness.
The jump in EV sales this year are primarily driven by seeing what a psycho in the US whitehouse can immediately do to gasoline prices.
Gasoline only comes from one source., and is largely delivered around the world by shipping.
Electricity is able to be generated by many means, and is available everywhere.
I know several people in modest suburban homes, who generate all of their own electricity, including driving two EVs.
The supply chain can be very short.
There is no other form of energy that can deliver the individual and national energy independence that can be delivered by electricity.
Gasoline and petroleum in general can never, ever, ever, deliver this degree of autonomy.
I think a large part of it is just EV's getting good & cheap. You can get a quite good EV for £15,000 now.
The major US car companies pulled back some on EVs mostly because of hostility toward EVs from the Trump administration.
Hum... Announcing you will completely outlaw combustion cars soon is missing from the GP's options.
AFAICT, that increases sales. "I better buy it now, it's going to be banned soon". Just ask the American gun manufacturers. They love announcements of bans because it provides a huge immediate boost in sales. And then in the end the ban ends up being watered down/removed, just like the European bans of combustion vehicles have been.
This US didn't really do Option 3, even, because it added EV subsidies but never removed gas subsidies. The gas subsidies in the US still tip the scale in favor of gas more so than EV subsidies were able to help counter.
They don't have the political will because doing (1) and (2) would result in the removal of whatever politicians approved it.
4) People in China want to save money on gas, while America prefers to bitch about gas prices, while doing nothing to switch away from gas-guzzling ICE land yachts.
You've cracked the code on this one, it's not the fact that someone realized they could use labor arbitrage 50 years ago to get rich while selling the American people down the river. Treason in the name of profit.
Labor arbitrage as treason is a very interesting idea. It's a major reason why China is as developed as it is now.
Labor arbitrage isn't why the average personal vehicle MPG in the US is 25, but 40 in Europe.
Nobody bombed us, all our problems are self-inflicted. Reducing America's oil and energy consumption was a priority for both parties until fracking was discovered and the Republicans fully committed to setting the world on fire.
*after further research it seems option 1 is really limited to tier 1 and tier 2 cities(1/3) of the population
> Out govt system literally doesnt have the political will to do these brutal but effective policy changes
I agree our country needs to really have some sort of revolution for the good of all humanity to force this change and overcome the entrenched interests of these greedy corporations.
Maybe we come up with a plan to drastically solve our energy and industry problems, overcome all obstacles and bring about a wonderful utopia, I bet we could do it inside of 5 years if we just gave enough power to the right people.
We could call it a 5 year plan, and listen we need broad sweeping powers to do it, otherwise malicious actors would try and subvert it. Some people wouldn't like it but that's because they aren't brave enough to do what needs to be done for the good of the workers and the proletariat. Rise up comrade let us implement the glorious 5 year plan that will free us forever from the capitalist shackles.
In your sarcasm, you seem unaware that China -- the country the OP uses as a comparison -- runs successful X-year plans under its hybrid capitalist model.