New cars have always been expensive and out of reach for most, which is why the average new car buyer is well into their 50s.

I don't see how people can logically make an argument about the necessity of switching to EVs for the environment while also demanding that everyone gets a brand new car. Scrapping a bunch of perfectly good cars to build new ones is not going to help out our climate issue.

And of course Tesla's are cheap used, they are an absolute train-wreck in the quality control department.

You're not wrong, but in fairness the headline says EVs are becoming affordable, not that they are affordable.

Oh, so you mean not yet, but maybe affordable soon.

What do y'all thinking "becoming" means? If they meant they are already affordable, they would have used the term "are."

Not only that, most of those cars coming available are from Hertz — they’re rental cars. But not just any rental cars… most are from Hertz’s Uber fleet.

So these are EVs with over 100,000 miles on them, worn out back seats and blistered rear armrests that have been driven by employees using a fleet lease vehicle. And migrating the cars’ software ownership to an unlocked non-fleet private owner state has proven to be… difficult.

Idk wtf any sensible person would willingly buy a new car unless there was no other option.

I got my EV used, and in three years I've already saved more on gas than I paid for it.

EVs are so much cheaper to maintain and operate; no gas, no oil changes, no transmission, no sparkplugs or timing belts. If the sale prices are close, the total cost of ownership will be massively in favor of the EV.

Which is why automakers and big oil have fought so hard against bringing down the cost of EVs.

They implicity, but clearly, define it: the same price as gasoline cars.

Also, Become != Are. It even notes, right in the blurb there, that they're getting there, not that they are there.

Nope, that’s not affordable.

i had the same thought and i'm also thinking that i'm going to keep my 15 year old car until it dies in the hopes that i can get those brand new $10k ev's that people outside the united states can get right now.

Recently, Mr. Lawrence said, customers have been snapping up used Teslas for a little over $20,000, after applying a $4,000 federal tax credit.

3rd sentence?

I'll share the rest because the paywall:

Carmakers including Tesla, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the owner of Jeep, have announced plans for electric vehicles that would sell new for as little as $25,000.

More than half of the used electric vehicles on the market sell for less than $30,000, according to Recurrent, a research firm that focuses on the used E.V. market.

Yeah when you use literal slaves instead of union labour, costs are down. I'm not willing to trade my humanity to save a few dollars and a debatable improvement to the climate disaster (I doubt the manufacture and extraction practices in China are anything approaching clean).

IMO this is a rare case of Washington doing the right thing.

Edit For the benefit of anyone at risk of being fooled by authoritarian propaganda, there is a plethora of evidence of slave labour used throughout the Chinese economy, from uyghur muslims to foxcons indentured workers. It's prevelent through the supply chain for many, many industries, and that alone warrants discentives on imports until such time as these practices end.

To suggest that individual businesses, who are built within this system, may be somehow operating outside of it is clearly absurd, however it's simply not possible for a layman to unpack and debate the supply chains and business practices hidden behind the bamboo curtain.

The discourse below is an example of how bad faith arguments can create doubt, by employing strawman arguments and ignoring actual points raised to create the appearance of being reasonable by hiding behind "citation needed" type arguments. If you read through it, you'll see that the propagandist doesn't once engage in anything I've actually said - this is intentional, they do not want to be in a position where any claim they make can be contested, nor do they actually want to directly contest any claim I've made. Rather they only want to sow doubt in what I'm saying, which takes considerably more effort to discredit than any actual claim.

The Chinese cars that are half price don't include any safety features, have a theoretical top speed of 80 mph, and a battery range of 100 miles. Those ones would never make it to the US even without tariffs.

They write articles for people worried about 300 miles ranges who drive 40 miles a day the vast, vast majority of days.

Is it any wonder the coverage is awful?

IMO I still think hybrids will be instrumental tech over the next decade. Those 300 mile EVs often get much worse range in weather conditions that are common in many parts of the country. It's also simply going to take considerable time for fast charging infrastructure to become ubiquitous enough to truly address range anxiety.

People waaaay overestimate how much they drive. The average person drives about 30 miles per day. 99.5% of trips are under 100 miles. Cold weather can drop the range by about 25%. That is still perfectly fine for 99.5% of trips. You know what country also has pretty cold weather? Norway. They also happen to be the country with the highest percentage of EVs sold.

Fast charging is only needed for the extremely rare occasion that you are traveling over 250 miles. Heck, even a level 1 charger is fine for the majority of people most of the time. And the fast charge network is built out pretty decently already so that you are almost certainly within range of one.

There are absolutely some issues with EVs though. It certainly is not all sunshine and rainbows. While a level 1 charger is perfectly fine for most people, many do not even have that. Most apartment buildings do not have outlets you can use in your parking spot. That is a pretty large chunk of the population that would have to rely on fast chargers. That is a lot pricier.

And while you may be within range of a fast charger, you might not be by one that works. A good third of Electrify America's don't work. Some that do, do not give you the full speed.

Charging speed still does suck for road trips. Sure, an Ioniq can charge to 80% within 20 minutes but that is with a station that can push 350 kW which are pretty damn rare.

Companies also seem to want to make EVs futuristic looking with zero knobs and also lock you into their ecosystem to harvest your data. They claim it is to help you more accurately calculate range and to be able to find a charger. That's horseshit. Just because something is battery powered does not mean it needs that shit. It would be one thing if they had competent software engineers but they largely don't.

I’ve had a used ev for 4 years and have about 110k miles on the battery. I drove for years in Houston, with 110 degree summers and recently drove a season in Winter Park in the -10 to 0 degree weather for the season and didn’t have any issues with range or charging. You do notice minor differences, but nothing is a surprise and nothing is unmanageable. There is a lot more FUD out there than is warranted from actual performance.

What about electric car technology "isn't yet there?"