Rivian CEO issues strong statement about people who purchase gas-powered cars: ‘Sort of like building a horse barn in 1910’::"I don't think I would have believed it."
Just because he compared it to a suburban doesn't mean that the Mitsubishi mirage and used Corollas aren't a thing.
And sure the Chevy Bolt is 26k, but that's still 5k more expensive than a new Corolla and has like half the range, and you can fuel the Corolla way faster.
And the fucking dangerous high front which is completely unnecessary on an electric car, why is it there. Not even the TESLA FUCKING CYBERTRUCK pulls that shit, say what you will about Tesla, but they understand how the differences between gas and electric cars can be taken advantage of.
If you read the article you’d see that he said that in the context of buying a Chevy Suburban in 2030. Suburbans start at $77k, so I don’t think his comment is that out of line.
That context is great, but I haven't seen any articles about the Chevy CEO saying such astoundingly tone deaf shit.
🤔 maybe the price isn't what's inflammatory.
Those trucks/SUVs weigh 8500lbs. Since there is no fuel tax being collected, these monsters are destroying the roads and not contributing to their upkeep. My city is passing laws to significantly increase the registration on these vehicles, according to their annual mileage. I'm all for going electric, but an 8500lb truck is not helping the environment.
2023 F150 weighs between 4,021 to 5,740 lbs, just as a reference point. All electric vehicles weigh significantly more than their ICE counterparts
This is true, but fuel taxes are very low. Most states that are charging an EV "road maintenance fee" (with whatever phrasing they select) are charging way more than an ICE vehicle would contribute in fuel taxes. And while it is true that BEVs are heavier than ICE vehicles, all else held equal, and that road wear and tear is strongly dependent on weight... as I recall reading, the overwhelming majority of road wear and tear is the result of freight trucks and similar vehicles.
I’m all for going electric, but an 8500lb truck is not helping the environment.
The issue here isn't that it's an EV in this case. It's that it's a truck. I'd wager than >95% of people buying trucks in the US would be perfectly served by a four door sedan or comparable sized vehicle. Trucks have largely become expensive vanity items to act as an external signal of a person's cultural identity. Contractors and similar that actually use a truck for truck purposes still exist, but they're comically outnumbered by people buying trucks for no good reason.
It’s important to read the full quote from Rivian’s CEO before complaining about $75k electric trucks:
“I think the reality of buying a combustion-powered vehicle … is sort of like building a horse barn in 1910,” he said. “Imagine buying a Chevy Suburban in 2030 … what are you going to do with that … in 10 years?”
He’s comparing buying a Rivian truck with buying a Suburban, which has a base price of $57k for the lowest tier configuration (LS) and a $76k price on the High Country configuration.
Um…does the CEO know that horses are still a thing and that horse barns (aka stables) are still in use? Also, the invention of the automobile didn’t instantly displace the horse. It was well into the 1920s before they became a regular sight.
Also…there’s lots of reasons to buy gas-powered cars these days. For one, not everyone lives in a home where they can install the necessary charger, so you’d always be on the “hunt” for charging stations, and fuel cars are generally cheaper at this time. Once we see the market flooded with EV cars, the prices will come down and fuel cars will no longer be the norm, but we’re likely a decade or more away from that.
I get what the CEO is trying to say, but it’s still incredibly tone-deaf.
“I’ve got my head so far up my ass that I think everybody should be spending $100k+ on a truck regardless of their need or financial circumstances. I’m also incapable of doing my job, which is why my company can’t produce enough units, even though it’s largely a solved supply chain problem. This is how I cope with my shitty existence on this planet.”
I just looked up the price for a Rivian truck and holy shit is this guy for real? Lmao. Just another out of touch CEO virtue signaling. If he really felt this way he would make them affordable lol
Right but don't make vulgar statements about how fabulous you are, and how stupid everyone else is but not buying your fabulous expensive car that's fabulous and expensive, but that's fine because you're a startup.
It's more the tone deafness. Most people couldn't afford either a car or a horse barn in 1910 just like most people (in America anyway) can't afford an electric car.
How to tell the entire world that you're rich and entitled.
Have you seen the price of electric cars it's ridiculous. No way I can afford one.
Also never mind the fact I have no way of charging it because I only have access to on-street parking. If they really wanted to help they should bring down the cost of their massively overpriced vehicles and also invest in distributing charging points around the country.
Isn't the ultimate plan supposed to be that they'll be at least one charging point and every highway at least every 8 mi?
It depends where you are and what market segment you’re looking in. In NZ you can buy a fully electric MG ZS EV (7 year warranty) for almost the same price as a base model Toyota Camry.
If you just have a regular plug in the garage, it works. I thought that I would have to get a special outlet put in, but after plugging in at night for a couple months I realized there was no need. Figure about 5 miles per hour recharge. I have an older used Leaf that was relatively cheap.
I don't have any electrical plugs in my garage. The best I can do is commandeering a 60 watt bulb socket with one of those adapters that turns it into a socket. Also, I don't think the apartment complex is rigged up to charge tenants for the cost of running that bulb and garage door opening either. So they probably would be pissed if I started charging a full EV in there.
Yeah, so, how much is one of those Rivian trucks, exactly?
$73,000?
Yeah, fuck off. That's more than the median annual gross income for American workers. It's all good and well to tout a slightly more sustainable form of transportation--still not nearly as sustainable as busses or trains!--but when you're pricing it well outside what most people can rationally afford, you're not helping the situation.
Average transaction price for a new vehicle in the U.S. is already at $48k. Plenty of electric models are below the average price by now.
The fact is, if you're considering buying a new car, you're already on the richer side. So this message is mainly aimed at those richer Americans considering a $73,000 F-150, that they might want to consider a $73,000 Rivian instead.
All these products have to come to market in order for prices to eventually come down. People need to see that they have viable options to gasoline cars.
In Norway, more than 80 percent of new cars sold are electric. There are many other options that don't cost $73,000. Rivian is just one option.
IIRC, Norway also offered substantial tax incentives to people that bought electric cars. IIRC, the fed. gov't did the same in the US, and car companies responded by raising prices by the amount of the incentive.
That's true but you have to consider how much of the car market is made up of used cars. When I was last shopping for cars (4 years ago) there were hardly any EVs in my budget and the ones that were, were 10 year old Priuses. Most people frankly don't have the income to buy anything more than a gas car. (Market for EVs may have changed since my experience). The way I see it is the CEO is making a good point while also shitting on poor people.
A giant electric "luxury" truck is still a giant "luxury" truck. Buying one over the other is like buying a cruelty free synthetic beaver cap over a cap made from an actual beaver. Yes it probably is better, but you are still wearing an ass on your head.
It's 2023, most people live in urbanized areas where a truck is similarly ridiculous, especially the modern "luxury" models. Those that actually use their vehicles for hauling things at a farm want real work trucks and tractors (regardless of engine type) with lower and longer beds.
Even then. My Corolla cost under $15k brand new off the lot. It’s not the base model either. The base model for the 23 Corolla is almost $22k. Car prices are insane.
The only new car still sold in the US for under $20k is the Mitsubishi Mirage, and even that model will likely be phased out in the next few years. I also wouldn't recommend buying one, as, speaking from experience, it tends to roll over in a slight breeze.
Buying any car, electric or otherwise, is 'Sort of like building a horse barn in 1910’.
Let's say that it depend on where you live. In a big city maybe a car can be useless (or less usefull), but in a small town like mine a car is basically the only way to move around since public transportation is really limited.
Real sustainability comes from changing the zoning code to cease outlawing walkability.
Even if you remove all the private cars in a city, you will discover that you will substitute almost all of them with small/medium trucks to deliver all the groceries/products you (end everyone else) need in your life. And I say it living in a small town where I can almost do the day by day chores without using a car.
A single delivery truck carries 100-200 packages, if everyone drives to the store instead, you'd have 100+ cars on the road. There is a huge difference.
That would barely scratch the surface, I'm afraid. For quite a lot of America, not owning a car is simply not feasible. I don't have a large friend/family group, but in 4 cases now, we've had to relocate our families a town over because wages aren't keeping up with cost of living. So we all have long commutes now. There are no buses, trains, etc. We were priced out of housing market. When my landlord sold the property and forced my move 5-6 years ago, I could rent and pay 30% more for a smaller place, I could buy for what I was paying if I wanted to move my family of 5 into a two bed with no yard, etc, or I could move a town or two over pay a bit more, and get a decent size house for my family. Today if I had to buy a house, I couldn't even come close to affording the place I live in now, especially not at 7-9% interest compared to the 3.5% I got.
Now I guess you could still say fuck me I should have given up my dogs, moved my family into a shoe box and just walked to save the planet, but even then that's not really feasible. In a town of 60k I moved from, there is only bussing, and even then they don't run often enough to a wide enough range of places that you're not building in additional hours of the day to get where you're going. And they often don't run past 7pm or before 7am. And that's most of America. Even in large cities, public transportation is severely lacking compared to the rest of the civilized world.
Biking in the US should also help be a stopgap, but our whole society is so fucking car centric even that's even not really feasible. Aside from the fact that most of infrastructure rarely has bike lanes or even places to store bikes, its still lacking severely from "I'm just going a few blocks over to the bodega" every few days and is more like "just 5-10 miles to the grocery store." And this is just looking at my tiny little town where I live that is nowhere near as bad as somewhere like Houston, which is far more populous and also even less dense and less traversable by anything that's not a car.
In 2023, saying people shouldn't own cars is either ignorant of the issues around it or just classist. The Rivian CEO saying shit like this, with a starting price of $73k, is just more classist CEO bullshit. We don't even have the charging infrastructure at the moment to support everyone buying electric, not to mention I'd be willing to bet that 50% or more of this country can't even afford the starting price on whatever the cheapest electric is.
To be fair the headline is a bit clickbaity. The quote is referring to someone buying a new Chevy Suburban in 2030. It would be kind of dumb to do that in my opinion, but I also would never buy a new car anyway.
In 1910 the Model T had already been in production for 2 years. Remember that the Model T was designed to be cheap, so that every American could afford one.
If anything, this is more like buying a horse (not building a barn) in the "Horseless Carriage" era of the late 1800s. It was an era when cars basically looked like horse-drawn carriages but without the horses. Everything was custom-manufactured, and it was expensive. You could maybe see that these "horseless carriages" were the future, but they were still pretty impractical for the present. The world still had infrastructure only for horses, and not horseless carriages.
And yeah, if you were rich enough you might want to do your part to get rid of the major pollution problem of the day -- streets absolutely filled with horse shit. But, that didn't mean it was necessarily a practical idea to be one of the first to jump on the bandwagon.
Sure, let me just fork over 80k for a truck from a company that's been building cars for only a couple of years.
My next vehicle will likely be electric, but right now my wife and I have decent cars that still run, and are paid for, and I'm reluctant to waste money replacing something that still works.
I'm on a diesel and the emission zones in the UK are making it more challenging to own one. That said it has 750 miles range, 4 wheel drive, a station wagon, can actually tow stuff without halfing that range and can fill it up anywhere in minutes. It suits my lifestyle perfectly.
That and it cost me £2600.. I wonder what electric car I could get for that.
Considering any new electric cars you buy would have to be made from materials mined and processed, manufactured into a vehicle and then shipped long distances before it even gets to you, keeping your existing car and maintaining it well is possibly better for the environment when the entire life cycle is considered.
80k and it cuts my carbon emissions by less than half. Which might be washed out completely when you consider that a Rivian weighs over 2x what my car weighs.
Electric is the future. But it is a boutique luxury right now. A compact ICE is probably just about as good a choice for the climate as a electric mega truck. Call me back in five years.
barns are still useful and valuable today. this guy is a moron! he might have said something that made sense, like buying a new horse-drawn carriage. still, didn't it take a couple/few decades for everything to switch over to cars?
For a very long while, which makes it so important we switch away from fossils fuels to co2 neutral, synthetic fuels as fast as possible. And in Europe, nobody wants EVs anyway, sales dropped like batshit crazy and everyone is getting ICE cars...
The infrastructure just isn't there yet. If you live in apartments, where will you charge it? Can the overall electrical grid handle the load if let's say 50% of people that own an electrical car? How do these cars do in extreme weather conditions? How much does it cost to repair them? How long will they last for? EVs are super expensive.
We can't even decide on a standard charging port.
While I will eventually get an EV, there are problems that need to be addressed still.
Tesla has ton of quality issues and riven is brand new. Why would I trust them?
I think the charging port thing is slowly resolving Type2/CCS seem to be winning. Most chargers I find that are relatively new support both type 2 and chademo. In a few years I don't think you will need to consider this and if buying today I'd stick with type 2.
I also heard that since the electric grid is designed to handle peak loads, it is over specced for today's needs and there is a lot of time during which it could be updated before we get closer to its limits. I also had these thoughts but in practice most people charge overnight when a bunch of daytime devices are off. We might not use 7kW at home during the day, but businesses use a ton of electricity during the day. AC when is hot heating when it's cold, PCs and monitors during the day, lights even though its daytime and that is before you get to a lot of power intensive specialist equipment that isn't used at night typically, like hospital diagnostic instruments etc etc etc.
I also wouldn't judge everyone on Teslas track record. It is clear other car companies are going now slowly and taking more care. Rivian may be a bit different being a new comer but that is certainly true of the established manufacturers.
-- a friend of mine just got a Tesla, despite living in a townhouse where he can’t charge. He goes out to charge on weekends, similarly to how he fills the tank in his gasoline car. It’s not as convenient or cheap as being able to just plug in, but it is a reasonable thing to do
— how do you think apartments and condo complexes will get charging infrastructure? It won’t just appear and landlords/associations have no incentive to spend the money. The only way this happens is when EV adoption gets wide enough for them to see they’re losing money without it
— who cares about a charging port? Adapters are cheap
— Tesla’s quality issues are old news, that I don’t think is true anymore. Yes, they had issues scaling up, and discovering what other car companies already knew about mass manufacturing, but I believe they worked it out and are more similar to other manufacturers
— Tesla may dominate th EV market in the US, but every car company has an EV, with dozens more models coming ou in the next year or two. If you don’t like Tesla’s try something else. Personally I’m not sure I can afford a Tesla but an interested in seeing whether GM can deliver on their announced pricing for Equinox and Blazer
– a friend of mine just got a Tesla, despite living in a townhouse where he can’t charge. He goes out to charge on weekends, similarly to how he fills the tank in his gasoline car. It’s not as convenient or cheap as being able to just plug in, but it is a reasonable thing to do
It only seems reasonable until you take a step back to consider the bigger picture, which is that areas zoned for townhouses ought to be walkable. The fact that he even wants a car -- electric or otherwise -- to begin with shows that something went very, very wrong in the design of the entire neighborhood.
The infrastructure just isn’t there yet. If you live in apartments, where will you charge it?
You're right, but not in the way you think.
The real issue is that if you live in an apartment, you shouldn't need or want a car to begin with. The fact that so many people seem to think they do is a gigantic flashing neon clue that we've fucked up the zoning code and managed to build the apartments wrong in such a way that they're not in a walkable area despite being dense.
The infrastructure change we need is to be ripping out the parking lots, not installing EV chargers in them!
There are places where this is just not possible. I live in very hot climate and people would be dying all the time due to heat exhaustion and dehydration if this was the case. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but you can't simply say, fuck cars. It doesn't work this way everywhere. I would say that public transportation needs to be greatly improved upon and invested in though.
I've lived in places where I don't need a car and it's great and shitty. I've lived in places where you do need a car and it's great and shitty. I've lived in places that have great transportation and it's hot, but again, it's great and shitty. There are trade-offs with whatever you go with. I do agree that we should focus more on better zoning and better public transportation.
Oh, and you get to change your battery in 3 years for $20k because it's worn out.
There are some big problems that get glossed over that you learn about when you own one, unless you've done enough research to know when people are blowing sunshine up your ass.
Our Prius lasted 12 years before we sold it, and it was still going strong. Newer batteries have improved their life expectancy. My experience makes me doubt your claim both on life expectancy and cost. A quick search estimates the (battery) cost between $2000-$4500, depending upon installation cost.
We replaced the Prius with another hybrid that gives us 65 mpg/28 kpl. When infrastructure gets better, We will fully switch to electric.
ICE engines really are that much more inefficient. Equivalent electrical costs are pennies per gallon.
edit added: (battery)
I worried about the battery until I had this thought (and looked at the 8 year warranty ):
Phone battery, charged every night, approx 1000 charge cycles thus lasts 3 years ish.
Car battery, charged as needed maybe every 4-7 days. Approx 1000 charge cycles thus lasts 12 to 21 years. Total battery failure is something else entirely but you said "worn out".
If you needed to charge every night it might mean short range which means cheaper battery to replace or you are doing lots of miles. My car could do 200 miles easily before recharging or up to 300 with more care.
If doing 200 miles a day you are doing 73,000 miles per year so in 3 years 220,000 approx. Any car probably needs some serious work done to it after that much.
Anyway we are still bringing this tech along so I reckon either prices will drop and/or car manufacturers will make them more serviceable so you don't need to replace the whole thing but maybe sub modules at a time.
I don't know where you got that info from but that is certainly not the norm... There are Tesla cabs in Vegas with over a million miles, and most of these battery packs retain close to 90% of their capacity even after 10 years. I'm sure there are exceptions, but 3 years is silly.
Yes there are problems and hurdles to overcome but I'd rank that pretty low.
Hey rivian ceo, build more fast charging stations along interstates and not just in big cities. Or build EVs that can go at least 500 miles on a charge.
Maybe. I remember when I built my computer in the mid 2000s (in high school) and saw something about magnetic RAM and how it would be a huge game changer. I thought about holding off so I didn't build something that would immediately be like buying something that runs on vacuum tubes in the age of transistors, but decided I wanted the computer sooner than later, it would still be useful, and who knows what would really happen with this magnetic RAM buzz. 20 years later, magnetic RAM has not, in fact, changed the game.
Even if Toyota does pull a rabbit out of its hat and they build a bunch of cars in 10 years, that 10-year-old car built today won't be particularly attractive anyway.
The average age of cars on the road in America today is 12.5.
They better be attractive in 10 years or they won’t have an easy time with initial sales. The EV glut on dealer lots right now is representing that now - ICE vehicles are backlogged but EVs are plenty (but overpriced for their longevity).
I like the idea of electric cars, may purchase one, but they don't make sense for everyone at this point. The infrastructure isn't there, they're very expensive, the range isn't practical for some, and many of the choices are unreliable. I applaud those who can make them work, but they're not for everyone yet.
Range really isn't a big deal. Pretty much any car will get you from one charger to the next, the question is how long you'll have to wait to charge. On most cars, 30 minutes of charging will give you a couple hours of driving. Keeping in mind that you can leave home on a full charge and arrive at your destination on nearly nothing, charging overnight, it's not bad at all.
Oh, and check Plugshare. You'd be surprised how many DC fast chargers are out there. You've probably passed by some and not even noticed. There are a few deserts out there (looking at you, Wyoming) but they're building up FAST. A year ago there was a 135-mile stretch kinda near me without anything along the way. Now there are two on that stretch.
Yikes! Are you supposed to just throw the truck away when someone hits it?
In my state the minimum legal auto insurance coverage is something like $25k per vehicle. So it's very possible, at least here, that your rivian gets a parking lot bump from Jim-Bob in his 30 year old Civic, and his insurance just won't cover it. And if he's driving around in a car that's old enough to run for congress that's covered by minimum liability, Jim-Bob probably doesn't have any money you could sue him for. I doubt they would garnish wages over a traffic accident, either.
Insurance and parking are two deeply costly aspects of subsidizing roads and cars over mass transit that simply aren't accounted for. Imagine thinking an effecient industrialized society would have strip malls and cars.
I don't drive a lot any more now that I work from home...but if I purchased an electric vehicle, the batteries (arguably one of the most expensive components of the vehicle) are slowly degrading whether I drive it or not, and I would either have to throw away the whole car or replace the extremely expensive batteries as early as 10 years (assuming the company who built it still exists). If I buy a gas-powered car instead, there is not a significant expensive component on it that starts totally degrading over time whether I used it or not...except the 12v battery under the hood that I have to replace every 5 to 7 years.
That Rivian CEO is suffering from affluenza and seems to think people are made of money.
Haven't read the article yet, but the quote irks me. I live in a home built in 1920 by a rural "house doctor" with a barn and stalls and all that jazz. Electric may be the future, but gas cars will still be around a while. The same way horses didn't immediately disappear from rural areas when cars became affordable.
Severely depends on where you live. It's very common in many areas of my state. Many farms have horses. Many people keep horses at other locations than their house, but still it needs a stable. Just because you don't personally know people with horses in no capacity means it's not something people still do
This guy's a fucking airhead. They're trying to rush out the cheaper smaller SUV model because they massively overestimated demand for their overpriced truck/SUV. It's 80k base and by the time you get the AWD and increased range package I imagine everyone who is their target market wants it well over $110k.
This will probably be the last big EV startup we see. After this the real caranufacters are going to take over. Which I'm a bit sad about as they don't seem to ever take any risks. I'd been saying for years there was surely demand for a small truck like the maverick, now everyone's making one. Just wish Elon wasn't so dumb and had made the cyber truck that with a electric drivetrain.
The value add for an individual is minimal to nonexistent in electric vs gas. Not so with a horse vs a car. This guy is delusional if this isn't just hype (it is) and thinks the comparisons are comparable.
My last car purchase was £8650 for a 1L petrol from 2016. And I bought it this year.
If he could direct me to the nearest electric car of the same price and range I'd be happy to buy one, until then it's a stupid comment and ICE are going to be here for a LONG time, purely because not everyone can afford expensive vehicles.
I'm in the market for a new car and it sure as shit isn't gonna a be electric. Maybe that's because I don't have $80k to drop on a new car. Maybe it's because I have zero interest in dealing with range issues. Maybe it's because every EV is a goddamn touchscreen on wheels.
The Rivian R1T's towing capacity is 11,000 pounds, so you can absolutely tow with one. The question is if you're talking about a trailer around town or a large camper cross-country. The former should be no big deal, you can always charge at home and start your day off full, but admittedly you'll be stopping to charge a lot more with the latter.
That said, most people don't carry campers cross-country, let alone frequently
But for how long? The real world tests I've seen on some EVs is pretty poor. If I'm towing something like an RV, it sure as hell isn't gonna be for just 50 Km, and it's going to be up and down massive hills where I'm from.
I'm not currently in the market for a truck and I don't know much about Rivian. Now I know for sure, based on this alone, I will never buy a Rivian vehicle. I used to consider buying a Tesla as well, but won't for similar reasons.
Much like his company, it's a copy off of Elon Musk
"If you buy a car that does not have the hardware for full self-driving, it is like buying a horse,”
Edit: This is supposed to be an insult to the Rivian CEO, making the same dumb jokes. Not a state of support to Elon, the whole context around that quote is wrong.
I think hydrogen fuel cell cars are the future. Batteries are by accident, planned obsolence. You have to buy a new car every 5 years due to batteries losing their charge over time.
There is a common misconception that EV batteries die within five years, forcing owners to buy a new car. However, this is not the case.
Battery technology has improved significantly, and new types of batteries, such as Li-S batteries and lithium titanate batteries, have the potential to last the life of the car or even outlast it[1].
Many EV manufacturers offer warranties for their batteries, typically ranging from 8 to 10 years or more, indicating that the batteries are expected to last for a significant portion of the vehicle's life[1].
With proper care and maintenance, EV batteries can last for a considerable amount of time, and ongoing research and development efforts aim to further improve battery performance and longevity.
Hydrogen is interesting for remote use cases, but the 10-15 year old used Leaf and Volt market argue against your second point. Most battery issues will be discovered in the first few years and after that it's minimal (1-10%) loss after a decade, using far older tech than today's models. The industry does need some standardization on battery modules to ensure less e-waste, more mechanics, and better pricing.
But you're comparing new cars. I don't buy new cars, probably never will. There are no electric cars worth their salt in my price range, which is in the 10yo second hand range.
Cost morenup front
Claimed range is NEVER real not even close
Batteries are super expensive to replace or repair and wear out sooner than ic engines
Bad on the environment to manufacture
Lack of charging stations makes fake range numbers super bad
Slow to charge
Useless on road trips
Range even worse in the winter
Its better for the environment to keep an older car on the road than to make a new ev
Range is never real not even close: evidently tesla has been lying about range, but for the most part, if you use an AC in an electric vehicle the batteries die sooner...which is the same with ICE vehicles. Use more energy = deplete faster.
Expensive to replace: yes
Wear out sooner than ice engines? Oh I don't know about that. There's no moving parts in an electric car. No oil to change, timing belts, no yearly tightening. There's still tires, brake fluid, and a host of new issues though. But they do not wear out sooner than ICE vehicles.
Lack of charging stations: yes, a limited problem, but in my area there are tons of them and you also charge at home and work (work is free, so it's free gas)
Slow to charge? 10-15mins wait is really not a deal breaker, you're just making some extra time to use the bathroom and get coffee.
Useless on road trips: I personally just rented a full electric and did an 800 mile round trip. It was not that bad.
Range worse in winter: goes along with 'that's how batteries work'. Plan your trip.
It's better for environment to keep older car on the road? Hard NO. Older ICE cars are less efficient with gas, which uses more gas. Getting a newer more efficient ICE car is better for the environment.
Creating a battery is bad for the environment up front, but after that there's a very small impact over the lifetime usage of that battery.
On the other hand, creating an ICE engine is light on the environment, but through its lifetime pollutes. Way larger impact on the environment than the electric.
Probably best to avoid these new tech-car companies if all their CEOs are going to do is just shoot off bad takes. Says a lot about the company culture IMO ☹️
Just leave people to buy whatever they want to, and importantly, whatever they can afford.
As much as I like electric cars, it's not affordable or sustainable to splash 10k every 10 years on a new battery. If I buy a combustion engine vehicle, I don't need to replace the engine/[insert heavy and expensive component here] every decade or less, assuming good maintenance.
Teslas are very good at looking after their batteries, but those are expensive. Nissan Leafs (older models/2010s) are cheaper, but they have no active battery cooling system to thermally protect the batteries, so you'll probably be replacing those more frequently.
For that cost, the owner is likely to just purchase a new car IMO.
There's probably going to be very little interest on the secondhand market for a BEV with most of it's range gone, and a battery replacement due. Most of these may end up being parted out and scrapped, rather than reused like older combustion engine cars are, despite the pollution they produce.
Edit: rewrite response
Old comment
Ideally, no car.
Realistically, any reliable older used compact car/sedan, that will cost you far less (just maintenance wise, not considering taxes, insurance, fuel etc, since maintenance would be the closest analog to the battery replacement labor and cost IMO) over the same period of time, and will likely keep on getting you from A to B for 10 years and more, with no gradual reduction in range inherent to a BEV, and no environmental issues trying to dispose of a massive lithium battery (unless a bulk grid energy storage firm buys it from you).
They're both rubbish options environmentally speaking IMO, but a used combustion vehicle is far cheaper to obtain and maintain for the end user, and can generally be kept running and sold onwards to others until it's totaled, without any of the many owners needing to worry about replacing a battery.
Why get butthurt with a historically accurate statement? By 2030 you should not, in good faith and all things considered, buy an ICE vehicle at all, even today some EVs are already cheaper than their ICE counterparts.