WetEV
Well-known member
GRA said:Of course more people are buying them, They've improved considerably but not enough to compete head to head without subsidies,
Oddly, this is changing. Some BEVs do compete without subsidies. Didn't you notice?
GRA said:they're available in a wider variety of types
True.
GRA said:, and the mandates are getting stricter.
Do give examples. I'm unaware of any mandates in Washington State. And BEV sales are doing just fine in Washington State.
GRA said:WetEV said:Exponential growth.
0.125% 0.25% 0.5% 1% 2% 4% 8% 16% 32% 64%(aka "mass market")
Looks tiny, at first. Gets huge later. There are at least three reasons why growth is exponential.
Social, people take time to adapt new technologies. Look at Norway: the government committed to making EVs cheaper than competing gasoline cars by tax reductions and subsidies. Still took over 10 years for new sales of PHEVs to exceed 50% of total sales.
Uh huh, which kind of blows the whole "BEVs are so superior to ICEs that everyone will want one" claim out of the water.
Oh? People are not "economic man", capable of analyzing every detail of every potential transaction instantly. Takes time, and observation, for people to change. That's why it is exponential growth, rather than an instantaneous switch the instant the economics shift.
The fact that people take time to decide to change doesn't disprove the fact that EVs are better. It proves that people take time to change.
GRA said:WetEV said:Manufacturing. Takes time to build factories to make batteries, and even harder to see, time to build factories to make the machines to make the batteries. As technology is improving, no one wants to build too much high cost today's technology when lower cost technology is on the way.
Infrastructure. There is a curve of people's infrastructure needs and wants. A small fraction can live with just L1 charging in the garage, requiring almost zero infrastructure. Another small fraction might want 350kW chargers everywhere, and has no economic "at home" charging. As market share expands, so will infrastructure. As infrastructure expands, so will market share.
As has been pointed out to you before, growth hasn't been exponential here, a country with some of the longest range needs, generally lower subsidies and minimal mandates. Once the price, range and infrastructure have improved to the point that mass market consumers can seriously consider them, then we'll see exponential growth. Always assuming mandates don't force people to switch before then.
As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, EV sales growth is best modeled as exponential. It fits the curves of new technologies with less error than other models.
I suspect you don't understand what exponential growth is.
Terms like 'exponential growth' are sometimes incorrectly interpreted as 'rapid growth'. Indeed, something that is growing exponentially can in fact be growing slowly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth
And yes, the real world is somewhat messy. 2018 was above the trend, 2020 was below the trend. At least so far, 2021 looks to be close to the trend.
[Edit: fixed quoting]