YHK - yet another hacker news clone

There's a bit of a problem that secondhand EVs aren't on the market until a couple of years after someone has bought them new. So there's a bottleneck. In this case all the cheap leasing deals work in favor of the eventual secondhand market.

It's a 4 seater no? Even if the rear seats are small.

Good looking but also a quite expensive one! If it will be for masses the prices will likely need to become substantially lower.

And we need the charging capacity for all those vehicles which is a huge issue. For example in the Netherlands this shows the capacity available to use extra power connections:

https://capaciteitskaart.netbeheernederland.nl/capaciteitska...

All red. The goals of the environmental improvements should connect with the actual real world available capacity. Otherwise it's just a dream.

The 500 has four seats and is available in 3 or 5 doors!

If you want a really small car, which Americans don't, there's the Topolino.

I think battery size is also an issue.

That's a concept car only with no intention if being in sale.

Honda e? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_e

I get that it's supposed to be a low speed city car where parking ease maybe matters more, but it's hilarious to see an EV where every newton of drag matters designed like a rounded brick on wheels. In fact most modern cars except for sedans seem to not give two shits about aero anymore which is leaving so much range on the table.

"Soon (tm)", say Mazda: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2026/07/31/can-the-ma...

Mazda and Toyota have dragged a bit on pure-EV designs despite Toyota's excellent hybrids, because they're unwilling to give up on petrol engines. But they seem to be gradually getting the memo.

Isn't it just different levels of import duty and/or proximity to China?

(normally something being essential drives the price up)

Interesting in which part of Europe are you living to make such a statement for the bit of luxury. The only country I could think of is the Netherlands and probably Belgium.

Jeez, cars are absolute necessity in US, and yet still ave cost new runs $50,000 US or about 44,000 euros.

There also higher tariffs and transport cost. Shipping cars from China to the EU can cost up to a few thousand per car. Local production seems less competitive. But the bottom line is that there are now a lot of relatively affordable EVs in the market. The cheapest cars in most markets now include EVs.

For example the Dacia Spring that is selling for around 17K Euros in Germany. And then there are tax rebates, discounts, etc. that are causing some of these cars to be available for a lot less occasionally in some markets.

Markets where EVs have been available in larger numbers for a while now have a sizable EV market. Australia is relatively early with its adoption, so the second hand market is a lot smaller there. The EU as a relatively early adopter has a lot of EVs from 2020 or earlier that are still under warranty and being traded in quite large numbers now. In the last few months these been a very hot commodity as lots of people are feeling the pain of high fuel prices.

All these new small cars will become a large part of the second hand car market in a few years. There will many be millions of them on the roads in a few years. And they last quite long.

You know the old joke - I don't have to outrun the bear, need to outrun you. China's companies goal is to keep their cars 10% cheaper than the locals.

My Seal had these duties (presumably) but then a 10k EUR subsidy, which sounds odd to me, but must be some policy legacy code.

around 150km in the winter, unacceptable range for a new car. A 28kWh ioniq could do that and they are cheap and come fully loaded.

The charging situation need to be factored in. Charging at home, it has enough range. Public charging, range buys the likely hood of charging convenience.

For my commute I'd have to charge every 2-3 days in winter. Not a show stopper, but an extra 10k for more convenience is a bit much.

>Once you put it on finance, it's often cheaper than a monthly rail pass

Cannot this be said about anything? Choose a long enough finance and it's "cheap". Let's forget you'd be paying (at least in Europe) easily 1.6x the price of the car because of the small payments.

"New and used vehicles are substitutes. When the price of a good’s substitute increases, the demand curve for that good shifts outward and the equilibrium price and quantity supplied both increase. Thus, increasing the quality-adjusted price of new vehicles will result in an increase in equilibrium price and quantity of used vehicles....Practically, when new vehicles become more expensive, demand for used vehicles increases (and these used vehicles become more expensive"

https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2022-04/Final-TS...

Being interested in/annoyed at the price of new cars even as a second-hand car buyer is somewhat justified

Beware the the "fair". Currently, governments are taking in vast amounts through fuel taxes. That will need to be replaced. It wont be an extra fee at registration. Current politics favors use taxes. As the concept of taxing electricity going into cars is a massive cluster of issues (ie the "smart grid" with differemt rates for different uses) the answer will likely be road pricing: a per-mile fee, which could mean manditory tracking. The transition to EVs as fair market actors is not over. It hasnt really begun.

I've seen governments give tax incentives to buy EVs that are then sold 2-5 years later, pumping a secondary market of second hand EVs. Cheaper for the government (they don't pay, they just take less tax).

Another approach is to incentivise middle to high income earners like Australia has done re novated leases on EVs being exempt from fringe benefits tax.

Lower income people aren't buying new cars, they buy second hand.

So be incentivising others to purchase new EVs over combustion, it creates a supply for the second hand market in 5-10 year horizon for those lower income earners. And while subsidies are in place for new models, this further pushes down the price of used EVs.

It'll be interesting what happens to Australias second hand EV market when the subsidies end in 2029.