VW electric car sales plunge: Why are Europeans returning to petrol?
https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/04/11/volkswagen-electric-car-sales-plunge-why-are-europeans-returning-to-petrol
by zaraalbro
VW electric car sales plunge: Why are Europeans returning to petrol?
https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/04/11/volkswagen-electric-car-sales-plunge-why-are-europeans-returning-to-petrol
by zaraalbro
33 comments
[deleted]
Because it’s better.
The fact European governments keep trying to brush off.
Can an electric car drive 600km, recharge in 5 minutes, then do 600km again? Can I charge it up at any one of the tens of thousands of stations conveniently dotted about the continent? Can I buy one for a reasonable price? Can I buy one that doesn’t look like it was designed by someone mentally handicapped envisaging the future of cars?
No? Fuck off then.
I can also add that Europeans live in denser cities, many people live in flats, there’s no way to charge at home.
They are too expensive, especially when we know the underlying tech is actually cheaper to make, somehow they are all huge, they are laden with gadgets we don’t want, and while early adopters can charge at home many people park on the street. But other than that …
Ditching Passat was a huge mistake.
Some thoughts:
– High cost
– Small selection (all estate models are ridiculously expensive)
– No home charging possibility for most people.
– Questionable life cycle
I think people who wanted and could afford an electric car (those who can charge at home or at work) already have one.
But electric is still not a viable option for people parking in the street : you just won’t go to a fast charging station for 30min every week for the same price as a gas car. When charging will take 5min maybe but it’s still 15-20min for the fastest models right now.
So you’re telling me less people buy the car that had a 8000€ discount paid by the government once it went down to only 3000€? I’m schocked.
I have a 22 year old Citroen Saxo. I change the oil and filters in my garage, i fill it with diesel and it gets 5.0 l/km. It’s cheap and reliable.
In Spain It has been very famous during last Eastern holidays, the huge queues the electric cars had to follow to charge them to go from Madrid to the beach. It was in all TVs, and I’m sure that’s the perfect negative campaign against EV.
Zero trade in value on EVs
Not enough charging stations, high % of people within cities live in flats, no charging stations in residential parking.. usually only people who own a house buy an electric vehicle where they can park overnight and charge it at over night.
ITT: lots of misinformation by people getting their knowledge about EVs from articles and opinions that only talk about the negatives.
And lots of people who seem to take daily 600km drives. Without breaks of course.
(silently speeds away from the downvotes)
I live in Barcelona. I currently have a diesel/electric Mercedes. I’ve never been able to fully charge it in the city. Public chargers around town are painfully slow, 7kwh. When you finally find a charger, hope that it is working, not taken by another vehicle or some asshole that parked there illegally. Then you can only charge for 30 minutes before you have to move along.
In my parking garage they installed electric charges and I was lucky enough to get a space. I’ve been waiting 3 months for the energy company/manager to get the device activated and working.
I can’t imagine having a fully electric car here. The charging network is impossible if you don’t have a dedicated charger already working.
Funny enough I have a 0 emissions sticker for my vehicle class. I only use diesel. The whole thing is a complete joke.
I back my story by saying you were just a dream back then.
Here’s you answer:
– Still way too expensive
– Subscriptions and other BS everywhere
– Nowhere near big enough selection of cars
– Still nowhere near good enough infrastructure for EVs
There.
Overpriced disposable devices adoption of which is driven mostly by a “feely-goody” policy and populism rather than real innovation that answers a need, and a lack of infrastructure.
As an EV driver, i think this is great news. The less people drive an EV, the more i will be able to enjoy the privileges.
Because Germany drastically cut the subsidies overnight. It’s not rocket science.
Really hard and fucking expensive to repair the car. If the battery is damaged, you can dispose it.
Way too expensive prices for electricity, especially in Germany. Average price is 0.33€ / kWh, I’m paying 0.52€/kWh, no option for solar panels. On many charging stations more than 0.50€, why should people move from reliable, cheap diesel or petrol to electric vehicles, that are almost not repairable and expensive to charge?
Not all EVs are the same. VW EVs aren’t that compelling. Don’t forget the Tesla Model Y EV is the number 1 selling vehicle of any type, in EU, US and China. Compelling EVs sell very well.
EVs are just a hype
because the eu does not allow us to get 20k china cars and the local car makers are thinking that we are so stupid to buy their shit small car with not space for 60k that is actually only worth 15k
In nearby Dutch towns, people don’t want EVs due to clusterfuck of infrastructure planning. The municipalities stuck most neighborhoods with public parking spots, even with new builds that could fit a driveway. There are barely any charging points. You pay a higher rate to charge your car in those locations than charging at home. Funny enough only more luxurious houses are getting driveways and the capacity for charging from their own homes. The proposed solutions are going to be pretty dramatic and ridiculous to implement too.
Because they are a horrible vehicle if you need to drive a lot? They’re usually very ugly? They are even worse in cold climates? Not practical? So on and so forth
Mr Bean said it best. Electric cars SUCK for anything outside big cities.
1) As an Eastern European the short answer is money. People don’t really have money for new cars most of the time here, electric costs an extra 20-30-50% more.
2) Even if I could afford one, I cannot charge it. I live in a flat in a dense neighborhood and there are exactly 2 electric charging lots that are 24/7 taken. Good luck with that.
3) My diesel Focus is awesome. Like really, modern Petrol/ Diesel cars are reliable drive smooth and everything. There is absolutely no drive in me to replace it. I drive 130 km on a daily basis to work with 4.8l/100 km. It just does its job and I bought it 3 years ago for €10.000. what EV can I get for that and what compromise do I have to take?
If you have a car more for convinience such as when visiting relatives 200km away, grocery shopping once per week and taking kids to sports stuff, then you don’t want something expensive with low fuel cost.
You’d rather have cheaper with higher fuel cost.
Also if there is no charging possibilities that pretty much seals the deal.
EV sales were up in a Europe in 2023 compared to 2022, it’s just that VW sales were down. People are simply choosing other brands
We aren’t returning to petrol. We continously choose the cheapest option. Subsidies have run out, so people stop buying electric cars as they are now more expensive. The car manufacturers are overachieving their goals for co2 reduction of the fleet. now you actually don’t want to overachieve your regulatory goals as a company, because then the regulators might realize their goals were not ambitious at all so they would set goals that are ambitious, and as a company you don’t want that. You already cried that the previous goals were unachievable yet you overachieved them.
You can get much more value for way less with a non electric.
Are we? Just because a brand who only made shitty EVs that doesn’t work, and that drives half the distance they said they would (sound familiar?) has lost sales, does not mean we started buying Petrol cars.
1.High cost on the charging
2. Charging stations are no everywhere
3. Long distance it’s challenging
4. High maintenance