In the past decade, EV makers have had to invent new chemistry and they still haven't fully cracked the nut of putting enough power into a lightweight enough battery to compete with a tank of gas. I'm fully on board with EVs as they exist now (but of course mass transit would be even better), but for the average consumer in America they're still just not good enough, which was why the extremely low price on some Chinese cars was such an exciting development.

[–] Gucci_Minh@hexbear.net 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

That's sort of how it started though, I remember as a kid seeing electric 3 wheel minivans and minitrucks and mopeds chugging along in the bike lanes carrying families and produce. Those really were just batteries, motor, chassis, and sheet metal/plastic shell, they had shitty motors and a range of like 80km at the time, which was fine if you just needed to make a trip in the city (and more importantly, they were cheap). The rapid advances in battery chemistry came about almost 2 decades later.

Chinese ICE engines have also gotten a lot better, but it took much longer considering how long companies like BYD were in the game making licensed versions of Toyotas but becoming EV powerhouses in the span of a decade.