Toyota chief says ‘silent majority’ has doubts about pursuing only EVs
I mean...He&#x27;s not wrong.<p>I&#x27;m going to get crucified for saying this, but I suspect hybrids will likely be the future, with EV use picking up slowly (if at all) over the next 20-30 years. Not saying EVs are like 3D TVs, but as it stands right now, EVs are far too expensive for the vast majority of the US population. I&#x27;m going to focus on the US for now. The readership for hacker news skews wealthier, but I would like you all to pretend to be broke, for just one second.<p>The cost of a battery pack replacement for EVs are exorbitant, and that battery pack replacement cost all but eliminates whatever potential monetary benefit an individual would derive from driving an EV in the first place. Yes, I know blah blah blah the environment, blah blah blah lower maintenance, but look - broke people already take their car the cheapest mechanic or have uncle joe take a look at it, or just don&#x27;t maintain it at all. The vast majority of people are going to look and see if its cheaper to buy, own and insure than a regular gas car.<p>The price of a new battery pack for an EV is exorbitant. A chevy bolt battery pack is 8 grand. A tesla pack costs 15k. Other electric vehicles are in the same ballpark. There is no way to get these battery packs new, other than going to a dealer, because &quot;refurbished&quot; packs just keep failing every 2-3 years and you keep replacing cell by cell playing whack a mole until the next cell fails. Ain&#x27;t nobody paying 10-15k for a battery. You can buy a whole ass car for that amount of money. The readership for hacker news skews wealthier, I know, but truly, there are <i>a lot</i> of people who buy cars for 5-10k and drive them for the next 8-10 years, with rarely an incident. There are a whole lot of people who have never bought a brand &quot;new&quot; car from a dealership in their life. And until EVs get cheap enough to percolate down to the masses, adoption is going to be at a standstill.<p>As an aside - The reputation of car brands is made and destroyed in the used car market. the Prius has an excellent reputation because (despite battery pack woes) there are people who drive those things for 300k miles plus, regularly.  I guarantee that if an automaker rushes and builds shitty EVs that ultimately end up being pieces of unreliable shit 5-10 years later on the used car market, that is by far the easiest and fastest way to ruin their their company and drive themselves to insolvency. Tesla is on the cusp of learning this, unfortunately.