When will it be dumb to buy a new ICE ?

[ElectricTundra]

Econ 101: Why I’ll Never Buy A Gas Car Again

Will ICE cars be a lot less desirable in 2020 thus making their trade-in value a lot lower? Will there be a glut of used ICE cars that are a lot less desirable than EV's? In that table of large luxury cars, how many of those who bought ICE cars will have difficulty selling them in 2020 if what people really want are EV's?

I think a lot of us would obviously say it's dumb today, but is that true? Will someone who buys an ICE today really get stung with a noticeably lower trade-in value in 4 years?

 

[jas]

The sooner electric vehicles become more diverse and practical the sooner ICE vehicles will less attractive. There are dozens of different car manufacturers putting out many different shapes and sizes of vehicles capable of different tasks at different costs. Some people want/need a truck or a sports car or a van or a sedan or any other variation and will purchase what they can afford. In time, hopefully, ICEs will become obsolete.

 

[Topher]

I don't know about dumb, but it was a close call for me in 2012. It is an easy choice now. But, I don't trade-in my cars until they are on their last legs (or try to kill me). So I would be suffering with an ICE in 2031. Yikes!

Thank you kindly

 

[aesculus]

For me it's when we fully realize and amortize the true cost of fossil fuels. Right now that is not being done so it's too easy to look at a piece of the equation and make a decision based on that: ie I only have to look at the cost at the pump or direct consumer per mile cost, not the associated costs.

The other factor is convenience. For commute style use cases, where the total distance is within a single charge, the EV is a no brainer. But when the commute or travel distance exceeds that then it's not so great. For example we did a 250 mile round trip to the bay area the other day. We HAD to stop and supercharge for at least 30 minutes insure a safe and reliable round trip. In most ICE's I could easily to that without the stop, and if I did need to stop, it could have been done in 10 minutes. So to me to fit all of my use cases, faster charging and longer range are both required to completely compete with the ICE model today.

 

[MitchJi]

It never made financial sense to buy a. new ICE. It's always better to buy a used car with low mileage, in excellent condition.

 

[igotzzoom]

It's going to be a long, gradual transition. Even once EVs become popular among new cars, there will be ICEs on the used market for at least 20-30 years. Also, paradoxically, as ICEs decline in popularity, the consequential decline in demand for petroleum-based fuels will probably depress fuel prices, making a used ICE a superficially attractive proposition to cash-strapped buyers.

I've already noticed that some gas stations in my area are being torn out, and not being replaced. In terms of when it will be "dumb" to buy a new ICE, that day will come when the charging infrastructure is ubiquitous and reliable enough where range anxiety is a non-issue, even in rural and remote areas, as gas stations generally are today, and when the purchase price is equivalent to a comparable ICE or less.

 

[Topher]

The other factor is convenience. For commute style use cases, where the total distance is within a single charge, the EV is a no brainer. But when the commute or travel distance exceeds that then it's not so great. For example we did a 250 mile round trip to the bay area the other day. We HAD to stop and supercharge for at least 30 minutes insure a safe and reliable round trip. In most ICE's I could easily to that without the stop, and if I did need to stop, it could have been done in 10 minutes. So to me to fit all of my use cases, faster charging and longer range are both required to completely compete with the ICE model today.

Are you including all the time sinks that the ICE car costs you? Oil changes? Refueling? Replacing the brakes? Counting 20 minutes only one long trip, which is presumably more rare than refueling the car sounds wrong.

Thank you kindly.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

At this point it'd just be a wild guess so I'm going to say never. ICEs are cheap, and modern engineering has made powertrains much more reliable so it'd take a _lot_ of cost reduction to make EVs even close to the cost of a basic ICEV.

I expect to see explosive growth in PEV sales as the new PEVs cross key thresholds, and demand helps improve access to home charging. Then future generations will chip away at the ICEV market as PEV costs and capabilities improve, and the automotive markets shifts with driver assistance technology.

 

[Topher]

It's going to be a long, gradual transition. Even once EVs become popular among new cars, there will be ICEs on the used market for at least 20-30 years.

No one in the US is going to buy a used ICE car in 2046.

Also, paradoxically, as ICEs decline in popularity, the consequential decline in demand for petroleum-based fuels will probably depress fuel prices, making a used ICE a superficially attractive proposition to cash-strapped buyers.

Maybe. Currently gas stations are running on thin margins. As you say, many went out of business in 2008. Mostly on the price up-tick, when consumption dropped a few percent. If BEV's perform the same drop, the same thing could happen on a larger scale.

Additionally, Gasoline is part of a larger oil industry, a drop in gas consumption is likely to cause refiners to lower the percentage of gasoline they make from a given barrel of oil. Demand could still go up in other areas, making gasoline both pricey and rare. Oil markets are complicated, confusing, and unpredictable.

I've already noticed that some gas stations in my area are being torn out, and not being replaced. In terms of when it will be "dumb" to buy a new ICE, that day will come when the charging infrastructure is ubiquitous and reliable enough where range anxiety is a non-issue, even in rural and remote areas, as gas stations generally are today, and when the purchase price is equivalent to a comparable ICE or less.

If you wait that long, you will be the one stuck with the hot potato.

Thank you kindly.

 

[igotzzoom]

If you wait that long, you will be the one stuck with the hot potato.
Thank you kindly.

Umm...Reserved a Model 3 night of reveal. My only wait is how long it will take Tesla to get it to me.

 

[James Anders]

Gas prices will tumble. Maybe well under $1 a gallon. There will be many people who will find that attractive.

 

[Krugerrand]

I think a lot of us would obviously say it's dumb today, but is that true? Will someone who buys an ICE today really get stung with a noticeably lower trade-in value in 4 years?

Used ICEs are going to become really popular for a period of time during the world transition from ICE to EV. For people clinging to the old world, for nostalgic people, collectors, for people waiting to get their EV - (like some of the people waiting in line for a Model 3, their current car may not last until then so they may look for a used one to tied them over).

I think there will be a very short intense period when suddenly the majority of OEMs just stop producing ICEs in any significant quantities or at all because they've transitioned to EVs, or they're going out of business.

To answer your thread question; I've always felt it was dumb to buy a new ICE and thus I've done it exactly once, even though I'm someone that drives everything until it won't move another inch.

 

[Topher]

modern engineering has made powertrains much more reliable

Why do you think that this is an ICE only attribute. Electric motors are about as reliable as machines come. How many moving parts in an ICE? How many in a BEV?

Thank you kindly.

 

[Topher]

Gas prices will tumble. Maybe well under $1 a gallon. There will be many people who will find that attractive.

Unlikely. Extraction and refinery costs are going up (and aren't currently under $1). Reserves are going down. There are other uses for the resource.

Thank you kindly.

 

[Az_Rael]

I don't know. I think it will be a long time before my ICE use case can be filled by an EV. We own an off-road capable pickup truck. Several times a year, that pickup is used to take me to very remote locations in the desert. (Think racetrack playa in Death Valley for example). Right now, I can travel to those remote locations without worry by bringing extra gas with me in my truck. So, for an EV to fill that role, I would need to be able to carry a portable charge somehow.

Gas is an amazingly convenient portable fuel. Until the technology allows me to travel with a means to recharge an EV off the grid (either via batteries or even better, solar), I will always own an ICE.

 

[Saghost]

I don't know. I think it will be a long time before my ICE use case can be filled by an EV. We own an off-road capable pickup truck. Several times a year, that pickup is used to take me to very remote locations in the desert. (Think racetrack playa in Death Valley for example). Right now, I can travel to those remote locations without worry by bringing extra gas with me in my truck. So, for an EV to fill that role, I would need to be able to carry a portable charge somehow.

Gas is an amazingly convenient portable fuel. Until the technology allows me to travel with a means to recharge an EV off the grid (either via batteries or even better, solar), I will always own an ICE.

It'll be a long time before a pure battery truck fills that role, you're probably right.

However, I could easily see that sort of role being filled by a PHEV. There are substantial benefits even for that usage (use the truck to power the campsite from the traction battery, instant torque for better rock crawling - even individual wheel motors for ultimate traction! and of course being able to drive electric for all the short trips.)

In the longer term, a solid oxide fuel cell or fuel cell with attached steam reformer might allow such a PHEV to eliminate the ICE while keeping the flexibility and liquid fuel (which could then be a much wider range of renewable and non-renewable fuels.)

 

[Krugerrand]

I don't know. I think it will be a long time before my ICE use case can be filled by an EV. We own an off-road capable pickup truck. Several times a year, that pickup is used to take me to very remote locations in the desert. (Think racetrack playa in Death Valley for example). Right now, I can travel to those remote locations without worry by bringing extra gas with me in my truck. So, for an EV to fill that role, I would need to be able to carry a portable charge somehow.

Gas is an amazingly convenient portable fuel. Until the technology allows me to travel with a means to recharge an EV off the grid (either via batteries or even better, solar), I will always own an ICE.

Yes. And you might die before you see the end of ICE pick ups. (Have no idea how old you are). But let me just put something out there for you to consider - there have been many businesses, industries, hobbies that were once popular that are no longer popular thus making doing them prohibitively expensive or just not done any more. What you seem to be describing to me is a hobby with a local following specific to your area. Now perhaps it's something that has hubs of popularity all over the country? I don't know, not the point. But what happens if Tesla (or someone else - heck, maybe even Ford themselves) makes an EV pick up shortly and it becomes so popular that it steals just enough sales from OEM pick up makers that they can no longer stay in business to make ICE pick ups? Will you be buying an EV pick up then, or will you switch hobbies? It's just a scenario that may play out in the coming years for you to consider to never say never. Or you might be dead by the time it happens. Or it never happens.

Or what if the price of gas just becomes prohibitive because the world has transitioned mostly to EVs, gas stations are rare....

 

[N5329K]

Horses were the primary means of transportation for quite a while. Horses haven't disappeared. They're just used in different ways now. I imagine that's the future of oil-powered cars, too. Collectors, racers, those without access to grid power, or where power density and weight are mission critical (aircraft, for example).
Robin

 

[Krugerrand]

Horses were the primary means of transportation for quite a while. Horses haven't disappeared. They're just used in different ways now.

Yes and no. That's a very generalized summary of what happened to the horse when it's far more complex. Horses were also at one time primarily used for war. Those horses exist today through descendants but are extremely rare, especially in their original conformation. The Lipizzaner for instance was primarily a war horse. Less than 4,000 of them exist in the world today in their pure form and only thanks to General Patton who saved the last remaining herd of broodmares and stallions by transporting them to safety during the war. There exists only a couple of places in the world that still teaches unmounted and mounted war movements. The only reason the breed and those teachings still exist is because of people who have dedicated their lives to preserving them. Those people and their skills continue to dwindle and I expect in the not to distant future they and the horses will disappear forever.

Draft horses were primarily used for farming until the industrial revolution. When tractors came into existence they decimated several draft breeds some going extinct. One of the breeds that barely survived was the Percheron. Another extremely rare breed of horse that only exists today because of dedicated people, but even so there is limited reasons (Amish, Old Order Mennonite farming, carriage showing) for such a horse. As a result the breed's conformation has drastically changed and today's Percheron looks nothing like the original Percheron.

I can give hundreds of examples and even talk about today's horse world and how it's been vastly changed to a 'this is a luxury item and no longer a need for survival item (except of course for that small population of people that do in fact still need a horse to live), and how that's caused hundreds of thousands of horses to be slaughtered, but let's move onto the cars.

How many Eleanors exist today? We go to museums to see that one of one or two cars in existence car.

So yes and no to horses haven't disappeared because they are no longer used primarily as transportation and thus today's ICE cars won't disappear because they are no longer used primarily as transportation. It's a lot more complex than that and has vast economical and social implications.

 

[Saghost]

Horses were the primary means of transportation for quite a while. Horses haven't disappeared. They're just used in different ways now. I imagine that's the future of oil-powered cars, too. Collectors, racers, those without access to grid power, or where power density and weight are mission critical (aircraft, for example).
Robin

Yeah, aircraft are a challenge.

They're already going more electric (the 787 made a number of interesting improvements in based on removing the compressed air/bleed air systems and replacing them with high voltage electricity and has a ~2.2kWh Lithium Ion battery which is mostly used to spin up the APU without ground power.) The new systems are lighter, more reliable, and actually improve cruise fuel efficiency by a couple percent through reduced engine losses.

Commercial aircraft will likely shortly be hybridized for ground operations - a couple companies are developing wheel-motors for the nose gear so the aircraft can push back and taxi on their own electrically without spinning up the main engines. I wouldn't be surprised if once that happens they start carrying somewhat larger batteries so they can put off cranking the APU longer - possibly even becoming something of a PHEV for ground operations: land, shut down all engines, taxi on battery power to the gate, plug in and charge the battery while passengers board, taxi out on battery and crank the main turbines just short of the runway. If the battery gets large enough, now you can do away with the APU entirely.

If solar panels get a little bit lighter and more efficient, I could see the aircraft starting to carry some (integrated into either the upper wing skin or the upper cabin structure) to further reduce the electrical load on the engines (Boeing is using high voltage AC generators for aircraft power, which means in principle they could probably be reversed to deliver some solar surplus to the high bypass turbofans to provide thrust, but it'd take major technological breakthroughs in both solar power and aerodynamics to make a jetliner fly mostly on Solar.) This could also allow the aircraft to use solar power for cabin climate control on the ground and taxiing.

However, it'll probably be a while before they go away from the main turbines - right now there's nothing on the horizon that can deliver that kind of power and range in anything like the same weight - short of some sort of beamed power system, at least (which has lots of problems, of course.)

If we get serious about global warming, the most likely solution for aircraft for the next 20-50 years will be some sort of carbon neutral liquid fuel. (The US Military has been exploring variations of Biodiesel for aircraft use with fairly good success - it's main challenge is staying fluid at stratospheric temperatures.)