Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- Can we not finally close all volcanos?by okr
- Propaganda for "Scrap your old car now and buy new—now with AI driver spying features as mandated by Congress, and personal data sales to insurance companies!"by bitwize
- Exactly.
My daily driver turns 54 this year.
Never cared much about the climate scam, never will.
by userbinator - The "get rid of a working car" is particularly suspect, and reminds me of the "cash for clunkers" scheme which was basically a giant sop to the auto industry. Why not just have EVs replace ICE vehicles when they break down and aren't worth repairing?by trollbridge
- I'd love a BEV but where do I charge it?
If I use public chargers isn't that vastly more expensive?
by pir8life4me - The US Post Office was slated to use EVs as replacements for worn out mail delivery vehicles. For many areas, especially urban areas, those would have been perfect and cheaper in the long run. I know because I knew a lot of Mail cCarriers and I know how these are used. As a kid I was driven around a route one day with a relative.
But Trump and the Postmaster General cancelled that and went to use gas guzzlers instead. I wonder how that is working out now.
by jmclnx - "But Trump and the Postmaster General cancelled that and went to use gas guzzlers instead. I wonder how that is working out now."
What makes you say that? The biggest impediment to the rollout was that the company that was supposed to build them repeatedly failed to do so, and finally had their contract pulled in 2021 and it was given to a defence contractor who seems to be on track to actually deliver the things.
by trollbridge - The new EV mail trucks are running routes in my area now. Not my route yet but I have seen them within a few miles of my house.by chrisBob
- Still happening.
https://news.usps.com/2025/12/01/usps-is-delivering-its-new-...
> The Postal Service’s $9.6 billion upgrade of its delivery fleet is proceeding apace.
The organization plans to roll out 106,000 new vehicles by 2028, including 45,000 battery-electric next-generation delivery vehicles and 21,000 commercial-off-the-shelf battery-electric vehicles.
> Additionally, USPS is upgrading infrastructure at its facilities with the addition of charging stations for the zero-emission electric vehicles, of which over 14,000 have already been purchased.
> So far, more than 35,000 new vehicles are on the road.
> “The new fleet rollout is proceeding well, aligned with our plan,” said Justin Glass, the Postal Service’s fleet management senior director.
(USPS spends ~$500M/year for fossil fuels, so it’s a no brainer to electrify)
by toomuchtodo - Why not sell a fully operational car as a used car and buy a new electric vehicle? Then, when looking into all cars, the fleet will get one more electric vehicle, but at the same time fully operational cars are still used until the end.by karussell
- It looks like they have the BEV lasting just as long as ICE car without any battery replacement. Has it turned out that way? Seems like owning an electric car for 18 years really hasn’t been a thing since the model s was released in 2012, but is it projected to last that long.
- Certainly not the case for hybrids like Priuses. The battery system lasts 10-15 years and 150k-200k miles. Any ICE car on the market now should be expected to last a lot longer than that; I drive cars that are 25+ years old and really don't need much significant in the way of repairs.by trollbridge
- Nissan Leaf went production-scale in 2010. There are still a surprising number of the very old ones around, even though the Leaf had a particularly _problematic_ battery by EV standards.by rsynnott
- The issue is less the wear and tear of the battery and motors and more the wear and tear of everything else -- suspension and brake components are going to need replacing, along with radar and ultrasonic modules, etc. These parts will be at least partially end-of-life and hard to get by the end of that 20 year period. Federal law requires some amount of parts availability for 10 years + some release of part designs to the aftermarket after that, but I have a hard time getting parts for 21 year old Ford designs that were less than popular, so I would be surprised if early Tesla models are having an easy time 20 years on. This gets much much worse as you start to look at the number of abandoned EV models from the Big 3, the abandoned/dead/dying companies (Fiskar, Lucid, Lordstown, etc). That doesn't hit the vast majority of all EVs, which are just Tesla, but it does put a dent/makes the buying decision harder. Now expand that to not just Tesla, but what does Tesla do with a Cybertruck? Like all things, the specific product decision matters a lot, and this is a new area (even at 14 years old) so there will be lots of people who optimized for cost and not maintainability.by wcunning
- 4% of Toyota engines need to be replaced before 250,000 miles; 3% of Tesla batteries need to be replaced before 250,000 miles. "More reliable than a Toyota engine" is pretty high praise.by bryanlarsen
- Yes.
EV Batteries Last Way Longer Than Expected - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43001996 - February 2025 (2 comments)
New study shows: EV batteries last much longer than expected - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42228901 - November 2024 (70 comments)
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
by toomuchtodo - As a data point: I’m at year 8 of Model X 100kWh with basically 0% capacity loss. If it exists at all, it’s less than 1-2%, so less than what I can reasonably measure with just the odometer and battery indicator.
Nissan Leaf gave BEV a bad name because it had much worse battery tech. Battery longevity is not a problem for modern, or even decade old cars.
by FabCH - I would like to get rid of it in the next few years but all new cars have only touch screen and phone home. Are there "stupid" e-cars too? I don't need much.by karussell
- Pretty much all new cars incorporate touch screens - that's the wrong thing to look at. What's important is if they retain physical/tactile controls for the things that matter (or matter to you). There are a number of cars out there that still have old-fashioned controls - Hyundai Kona is on my list for that reason.by sparklysoup
- Original title “The climate benefits of retiring a fully operational internal combustion engine vehicle” compressed to fit within title limits.
A new lifecycle study in the journal Science concludes there are substantial climate benefits to swapping an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle for an electric vehicle (EV) even if the ICE or hybrid vehicle is brand new, if driven more than ~7,054 km/year (4,384 miles/year).
by toomuchtodo - There is an element I haven't seen in this conversation: as the number of combustion engine cars goes down the number of gas stations also goes down. At some point, combustion engine drivers will start feeling range anxiety. So when you get rid of your fossil-fuel-burner vehicle, you are pushing others to do so.
The full calculus of CO2 emissions reduction should also include the reduction induced in others.
by joak - That process has likely already started, with the long term trend towards consolidation having accelerated over the past five years.
In the UK, for example, the number of petrol stations has fallen by around 75% in the past 50 years and drivers now have to travel twice as far on average to fill up.
I'd expect the remaining sites in city centres to have entirely vanished by 2035. Out of town, they'll last a little longer but the distribution component of petrol prices will rise as the fixed costs are born by dwindling numbers of ICE drivers.
By the mid 2040s, there'll only be a tiny market driven largely by enthusiasts who don't care much about price. Perhaps we'll see delivery services springing up, similar to those for home heating oil, but the traditional large petrol station will be all but dead.
by roryirvine - The fact of the matter is that the only thing that matters to most people is what makes economic sense to them. As for me, no way am I trading my 20 year old, fully paid for, cheap to insure, cheap to register ICE vehicle for a new EV with payments, higher insurance, and higher registration fees.by SoftTalker
- >higher insurance, and higher registration fees.
And higher propensity to beep and whine at you and higher propensity to pull a "I'm sorry dave" at any given time.
- Eh, for cars _in particular_, people are quite resistant to doing the maths. If they weren't, then low-mpg cars would be almost unsellable. But people make decisions on cars quite weirdly.by rsynnott
- The economy does not occur naturally. We can turn the knobs on this equation by just having some taxes. For example, carbon taxes. That should change your calculus pretty significantly.by jeffbee
- I fully agree with you but you're leaving out two ongoing costs that are usually in an EV's favor, fuel and maintenance.
That probably wouldn't make the difference for a fully paid for vehicle but it can make a substantial difference depending on electricity (and access to solar) and fuel prices.
by parineum - If you were living in Nepal and your country was getting all of its refined gasoline from India, and therefore that was super expensive, while China was helping your country build a bunch of hydro plants, oh, and they were sending a bunch of EVs to buy over the pass from Tibet, I think your math might change (but then you would highly likely not have that ICE car to begin with).by seanmcdirmid
- The fact of the matter is that the only thing that matters to most people is what makes economic sense to them.
Yes, and that's why we should have carbon taxes that better align what makes economic sense with what's environmentally beneficial.
by orangecat - > the only thing that matters to most people is what makes economic sense to them.
The other thing is the UX of figuring out how much an EV costs to charge is painful. It changes every few miles based on who your utility provider is, going through the various plans, figuring out the right plan. The vast majority of people are incapable of that.
It works out to be cheaper (a lot cheaper) for most people, but its hard to refute arguments by fossil fuel shills when they use Hawaii, CA or NY electricity prices. We can say, no its not true, but I can't refute the argument until you provide zip code and utility provider.
It would be awesome if we can state costs like, it costs $0.01/km for EV vs $0.08/km for gas. For eg: What Kind of EV Can a Low-Income Family Buy in China? ($0.01/KM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4860RGi7IY