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Discussion (56 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
Europe is also potentially more affected by climate change than US and China, as I understand. India of course would be toast in a hotter world, but perhaps it too poor right now to do much about it easily.
But discoordinated action won’t move the dial. So should Europe continue on the green path while losing GDP share to US, China and India? Should it jump on the coal bandwagon and screw up the world since everyone else is? It’s not like green contrarian action will do much good on its own.
It’s altogether a not pretty picture…
That's what it takes in 2026 to make EVs still not quite cheaper than ICE cars. I imagine the free-with-charging-at-guaranteed-low-prices parking spaces make a large difference here.
Sadly for obvious capacity reasons the cheap parking space will be only for a few years.
Chinese cars can be superior on paper, cheaper to buy or operate. The factors on a consumer mind is
1. If something is wrong(modern cars are like beta software), will I get the support and service?
2. Will the car company exist in 5/8/10 years after my purchase? Resale value, parts for future maintenance etc.
The Chinese brands IMO are not there yet. A few years ago, Nio was very cool and tempting.. now they are winding down in Europe. There are plenty of reviews online where people struggle with service on their Chinese cars. Plus, it doesn’t help that they are dozens of brands(BYD, Xpeng, Zeekr, Cherry, Nio etc) instead of the confidence a brand like VW would instill(in the sense that your independent mechanic would know what to do if it’s VW).
Perhaps if the Chinese brands stand the test of time in a few years, we would trust them like Hyundai/Kia of today.
Thanks for keeping the lights on for my neighbors for a few more years. However, I think BYD is there, and if weren't for the EU's Chinese EV Important tax, you could almost buy 2 BYDs (one for driving and one for spare parts /s) for the price of an equivalent VW.
I am not a car journalist and therefore have only seen 10s and not 100s/1000s of cars, but for my limited sample size: 100% of German(and most American and Japanese) car software is offensively bad. No idea whats so hard about getting at least the performance of a 10 year old iPad in a car.
Also: If you want "German Quality", the closest you will get is by buying a Japanese/Korean car. If money is of no concern, the Mercedes EQS might be an OK option, but they lost their stand out feature by no longer selling (giving up on?) Level 3 self-driving.
2. that's why you choose decades old company like BYD, Cherry (Omoda, Jaecoo) or Geely (with their sub-brands Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Volvo), I would refrain from companies like Xpeng or Nio which doesn't have strong company behind them, actually I would not be so sure either that Tesla car brand will still exist in 10 years (at least outside US)
I sure have bigger trust in future of big Chinese companies than those EU companies like VW with very uncertain future, they survived Japanese/Korean ICE invasion with big losses (my mother has Toyota, my father has like 3rd or 4th Japanese car, I think in last 30 years he had only one European brand car, because EU brands just can't compete), I am not so sure these legacy EU brands will all survive Chinese PHEV/BEV invasion, if they will survive they will be most likely acquired by Chinese like Volvo anyway.
Most gas stations have them and there is also a lot of street charging stations.
But it's still cheapest to charge at home.
But increasingly it's becoming a problem that those cables have nowhere to run to as the grid isn't capable of serving them all. There might be excess generation but unless you have the capacity in the wires to get it where it's needed you're still stuck.
Especially in dense old cuties where the grid was built when the goal was to power a bunch of incandescent light bulbs. Not all the appliances we have today let alone cars with a battery capacity equal to a household's weekly usage of electricity when the grid was designed.
which are an order of magnitude less efficient than contemporary LED lights.
in Norway its roughly 25% (apartments) vs 75% (houses)
I have rented the pay-per-minute electric cars a few times, and have always found it easy to get a discount on the next journey by leaving it plugged into a charger.
This says there are over 50,000 charging points: https://eletric-vehicles.com/general/denmarks-public-ev-char...
And of course Denmark pioneered a lot of wind technology. The country is running on cheap wind power at this point and you can get really favorable rates off peak hours.
I own an EV and enjoy it a lot. I would not even consider buying a gas vehicle again. But while charging at home is great, charging during a trip is annoying. This needs regulation.
I've heard the subsidies are the reason why there's so many shitty charging stations. People build them, collect the subsidies, and never actually care about running it well. A silver lining is at least the space is reserved once we decide to get serious about fixing this as a society.
Prices need to be made available online and prominently displayed at the entrance of the station. They shouldn't allow cheaper prices for subscriptions or even blocking any access without one.
We're all special, each in our own unique way.
That's a drop except in Bulgaria, where it's the same as last year.
And if those 10+ year old diesels are replacing 15, 20+ year old diesels it's still an improvement.
https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
Cars under VAG sell TDI engines with a small battery and call it a hybrid.
why not buy a used EV then?
https://www.electrive.com/2026/08/04/denmark-evs-account-for...
also it should be noted that Denmark has extremely high car registration taxes, so for instance 40K EUR worth ICE car cost after registration 73.5K EUR, while 40K EUR BEV cost after registration 40K EUR, that's really tough choice to make - either you pay 73K EUR for ICE or 40K EUR for BEV, both with same price tag in dealership + BEV has other benefits like cheaper parking etc.
if gov were to remove these artificial (B)EV tax benefits then we would really see what would people choose, but gov is completely influecing the market, so people just do what is currently beneficial for their wallet, it is for sure not due to EV being good, do you think people would buy EVs if tax rates were reversed and ICE would cost 40K EUR and BEV would cost 73K EUR?
zero ICE advantages?
1. lower price (if gov doesn't destroy market with taxes/benefits)
2. much bigger range
3. you can refill the tank in few minutes without any planning pretty much anywhere
4. you are saving the roads since ICE is usually much lighter than comparable BEV, cars should pay road tax based on their weight as main factor
5. cheaper per km expenses (vs fast chargers, half of the DK population lives in apartments)
OTOH BEV advantages:
1. better acceleration
2. quieter
3. simpler engine, so in theory less maintenance and higher longetivity
btw. you don't smell stink of your fumes, so your EV doesn't really solve this problem
I really doubt (most) people care about acceleration/noise and maintenance that much they would be willing to pay double price of the ICE and get those disadvantages
Don't get me wrong, I am fan of EVs, but under normal market conditions. Bring me Chinese EVs for Chinese price and if EV will be actually cheaper than some European ICE, then people can accept those EV disadvantages, but at current prices which are already not real thanks to gov it just doesn't make sense for someone not living in their own house with PV.
So, like I said: to me a car is just a car. But no stink and less cost so far.