If President-elect Donald Trump makes good on his threat to kill federal tax credits for electric vehicle purchases, it’s likely that fewer buyers will choose EVs.
The pricing problem isn’t inherent; manufacturers could make cheaper EVs, but are making most of them as premium models instead because they think they can (and likely do) make more money that way - same reason that almost nobody is building affordable housing, but rather luxury apartments.
It’s just going to take a bit of time. They’re focusing on luxury right now because it’s the highest profit per unit, and you always want to exploit the highest profits as a corporation. As they scale up, they will overflow the luxury market, which is why were starting to see cheaper options start becoming available. It’s a profit maximization strategy that has been around for a very long time for the introduction of new goods.
The housing thing is a different problem, because that’s dealing with a finite supply of land in places people want to live and the fact that people want things to stay the same “in their neihbourhood”
The pricing problem isn’t inherent; manufacturers could make cheaper EVs, but are making most of them as premium models instead because they think they can (and likely do) make more money that way - same reason that almost nobody is building affordable housing, but rather luxury apartments.
It’s just going to take a bit of time. They’re focusing on luxury right now because it’s the highest profit per unit, and you always want to exploit the highest profits as a corporation. As they scale up, they will overflow the luxury market, which is why were starting to see cheaper options start becoming available. It’s a profit maximization strategy that has been around for a very long time for the introduction of new goods.
The housing thing is a different problem, because that’s dealing with a finite supply of land in places people want to live and the fact that people want things to stay the same “in their neihbourhood”
The economics are similar, but the solutions do differ. In the case of housing, we can build up in desirable areas while using the NIMBYs as biofuel.
You can make all the biofuel you want so long as it’s not made or burned in my backyard. The fucks a NIMBY?
You had me in the second half