this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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I was in the market for a car in the spring, around the time a lot of European officials were complaining about how super cheap Chinese EVs were taking over the European market and putting European manufacturers out of business because of heavy state subsidies or dumping or whatever "non free market" practices they felt like making up.
So I excitedly looked for a cheap but practical Chinese EV, only to find that, at least earlier this year, only luxury models were available. If I wanted a cheap EV it would be a heavily subsidized VW or a heavily subsidized Muskmobile.
I honestly feel that's a missed opportunity since dense European cities would be served extremely well by something like a Wuling Mini EV or BYD dolphin. Just a nice compact car for around town, easy to park, fits narrow streets, very affordable. I guess the idea is to enter the market in such a way as to enhance their reputation with luxury or premium models first, before introducing the VW Golfs of EVs.
I think personal car ownership in European cities is on the way out. It's unaffordable, annoying, and unnecessary, many young people don't even have a drivers license (in Germany it now costs three months pay at minimum wage to obtain a basic driving license). I managed even in a less dense (semi-urban?) area for nearly six years before there wasn't another option.
For car sharing small EVs definitely make sense. It is a missed opportunity in the way that there is a market which the European manufacturers haven't really taken hold of yet. EVs are still an upper middle class status symbol, even as European politics are pushing EVs as a big part of the solution to climate change. An EV for the people (like the original Volkswagen - the Nazi politics of that put aside) just isn't available here yet.
In another way it's a missed bullet as the electrical supply and grids as they are can't handle transportation energy demands, and charging at home (especially with high voltage) is probably only realistic for wealthy property owners.
What would be great is if the money spent on subsidizing car companies would be redistributed to rural public transportation and long overdue investments in existing rail. But instead we're hearing about how maybe it isn't possible to stop selling combustion powered cars by 2035 after all.
It helps that many European cities are not built around cars and have decent public transit. Where I am, if you don't have a car, you have to take 3 times as long to get anywhere, and if the transit system doesn't go there? Well hope you have 50 dollars for an uber. Shit sucks.