Yet another Hacker News

Europe EV sales rose 70.3% in September, 32.6% of market share

113 points giuliomagnifico 1 hour ago 97 comments

oblio 1 hour ago | parent

EV, epedelecs (+bike infra), heat pumps, anti plastic regulation, and Europe becomes fossil fuel resilient.

mrtesthah 1 hour ago | parent

e-bikes in particular have reduced fossil fuel use by huge amounts compared to EVs. When you consider that most of a car’s energy is used simply to move the car itself, the aggregate inefficiencies are staggering.

carlosjobim 13 minutes ago | parent

A motorcycle uses about half the amount of fuel as a gas car, and costs a fraction of what a gas or EV car costs.

But motorbikes are always ignored, even though they would be the fastest and cheapest way for Europeans to reduce their gas usage.

What mid-sized motorcycles and EV cars have in common is superior performance.

carlosjobim 18 minutes ago | parent

There will always be conflicting interest between reducing plastic packaging and guaranteeing hygiene for food products.

In my opinion hygiene takes priority.

delichon 1 hour ago | parent

Is there anyone in the world who did more to make this happen than Donald Trump? Maybe Vladimir Putin?

JMKH42 1 hour ago | parent

Its effective but death and suffering on a mass scale aren't the best ways to drive EV adoption overall.

whyage 1 hour ago | parent

Low EV adoption will lead to much more death and suffering due to climate change. So, sure, it's not the ideal way to achieve this result, but it's better than the alternative.

usern20260720 1 hour ago | parent

I wouldn't be so optimistic. At the current trend, we might be just walking corpses. Like newborn Japanese children from Nagasaki on the 2nd August 1945 (4 days before its sudden democratisation or vaporisation by the American democrazy). We are just seeing the apocalypse in slow motion.

According to some of the most optimistic doomsayers of the Interwebs, the warming levels we are enjoying as of today are due to the CO2 levels of 30 years ago.

debo_ 1 hour ago | parent

Username checks out. Why age when you can sacrifice your life for climate preservation.

seydor 1 hour ago | parent

One more reason to demand the Nobel peace prize next year

warkdarrior 1 hour ago | parent

The bombings will continue until the Nobel peace prize is awarded.

WarmWash 1 hour ago | parent

Please god give donald trump a nobel peace prize for killing oil. Please, please happen.

jandrese 1 hour ago | parent

Yes, give him a Nobel prize but have him share it with Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran.

fifilura 1 hour ago | parent

The ceremony :)

standeven 1 hour ago | parent

It’s a shame that the US and Canada are lagging behind. I get that politicians want to protect the fossil fuel industry and slow-to-adapt domestic automakers, but consumers and the environment suffer instead.

nxm 1 hour ago | parent

Maybe reasons like this make people not desire EVs:

But with winter right around the corner, owners are worried that the cold weather. The ID.4 Pro S AWD is rated for 263 miles of EPA range in ideal conditions. The 20% hit to the battery likely brings real-world range below 200 miles, and actual winter condition tests show that the ID.4 loses up 37% of its range in the cold—ouch. https://insideevs.com/news/812129/vw-id4-charge-limit-80/

rwmj 1 hour ago | parent

200 miles is still further than I ever need or want to drive in a single journey.

bruce511 1 hour ago | parent

The number of people driving 200 miles in one go in Europe is tiny.

Plus charging points are everywhere, so it's trivial to just top up for 30 mins or so.

I feel like the range question is becoming more FUD than reality.

czinck 53 minutes ago | parent

I believe you're misunderstanding OPs point. I read it as saying North Americans drive 200+ miles at once more often than Europeans, and so it makes sense that EV adoption would lag in North America given that.

karmakurtisaani 1 hour ago | parent

Yes, me and all the others are worried that our daily 200km commute in -40 Degrees will not be feasible.

I mean, seriously, it's a small inconvenience once you realize you don't need a huge range in your daily life. I do wish my EV had a longer range, but I get over 300km on a charge and it's more than enough for everyday use.

standeven 1 hour ago | parent

You should warn Norway, which is approaching 100% EVs for new vehicle sales.

bruce511 1 hour ago | parent

It's interesting to see the way politics influences public opinion which in turn influences manufacturers, which in turn influence politics.

In Europe EV's have a positive political support, which means lots of sales, which means "all" European manufacturers have solid (and improving) offerings.

By contrast the biggest EV manufacturer is politically toxic to the very people likely to buy it. And oil companies lobby hard to keep anti-EV talking points alive. Which drives sales down, and manufacturers drop EVs from the range. Banning competition doesn't seem to help with making progress.

And yes, I get the "Europe short distances" argument, but how many Americans are really driving 300+ miles every day?

So, 20 years from now, will US manufacturers exist? Or will products from Asia and Europe be too far ahead?

shinjitsu 1 hour ago | parent

>And yes, I get the "Europe short distances" argument, but how many Americans are really driving 300+ miles every day?

Everyday? probably not many, but 300+ in a single day several times a year, well I bet it is quite a few. Visiting relatives at Thanksgiving and other holidays, summer vacations, sure some people take airplanes, but most aren't that well off. And if you have children visiting aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents, the only place I'd want to do a 40 minute charge for the next leg is maybe Buc-ees, which is in a pretty small part of the country.

Will this take me and my family where we need to go is a more important consideration than the daily commute for me, but perhaps that is not as common a sentiment.

standeven 1 hour ago | parent

Charging, for me at least, is usually a 10-15 minute affair which is faster than my family can use a washroom and stretch our legs. Several road trips per year in an EV is painless.

Towing things long distances is one of the few EV weak points I can think of, but REV trucks should mostly fix that too.

hvb2 53 minutes ago | parent

> but 300+ in a single day several times a year, well I bet it is quite a few.

And this hasn't been a problem in an EV for years. That's a single charge for almost all EVs now. And with fast chargers being almost everywhere, especially along highways, I doubt the actual time taken is very different.

If you don't take a single ~20 minute break in a 5 hour drive, you can beat it. I'm not sure that's healthy or safe though. If you have children this isn't even an option IMHO.

> Will this take me and my family where we need to go is a more important consideration than the daily commute

Totally your decision obviously. It's also why you see so many trucks and all terrain vehicles drive around for the 1 time a year that might be useful. The rest of the year you just pay for that in gas/maintenance/parking ease etc. Again, your decision and I'm not saying you should change, just playing Devils advocate

Shitty-kitty 50 minutes ago | parent

I only drive 300 miles a week. The problem is, I live in a apartment and there are no chargers at my workplace.

doug_durham 34 minutes ago | parent

You don't need a 40 minute change. My Ioniq 5 will go from 30% to 85% in 20 minutes. On road trips I'm usually in and out in about 15 minutes which is aligned with my stop time with my ICE car. Why would you limit yourself to stopping at a single vendor like Buc-ee's? My EV is the best roadtripping car I've ever owned. It's a superior car, and it "refuels" quickly.

mattlondon 31 minutes ago | parent

I do this frequently. A 15 minute stop for a biobreak and a takeaway coffee usually adds 100 miles or so on a modern EV and fast charger.

It's really not much (if any) inconvenience. If in a gas car you assume you are going to stop to take a piss and grab a drink or a snack or something anyway during the course of a long 300+ mile drive (very likely I'd say, unless you and your passengers are urinating into bottles), you'd still need to stop for gas at some point too when with an EV you are actually spending less time since it's "filling up" while you are in the line waiting for your skinny latte. You don't have to do all that then also stop to grab gas too, because your car filled up without you.

bobson381 51 minutes ago | parent

Oil has produced the political system, as well as the complexity it sits atop. [0] [1]

[0]https://www.apocalypse-confidential.com/the-autonomous-chemi...

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSsKV5F4xc

anovikov 1 hour ago | parent

Why are people still arguing and trying to dilute 2035 fossil fuel car production ban? Isn't it obvious that by 2035 these cars will be off market, ban or not, because no one will want to buy them?

layer8 1 hour ago | parent

No one would care about ban or no ban if this were true. The European auto industry cares because they are less competitive in the EV sector.

thinkingtoilet 1 hour ago | parent

No, it is not obvious, especially to anyone who lives in a rural area. There is a type of smooth-brained reactionary person who will buy the biggest gas-guzzling truck he can find just because you told him not to.

ngruhn 1 hour ago | parent

A good outcome of this crisis. These god damn fossil fuels. Never even mind climate change. Being depend on them has turned out to be a huge national security risk. Picking a seller is picking your poison: Russia, the Golf states, and now the US.

happymellon 1 hour ago | parent

> the Golf states

Scotland?

mousetree 1 hour ago | parent

Florida

ceejayoz 1 hour ago | parent

I think they're referring to the Persian Gulf.

tonyedgecombe 1 hour ago | parent

Woosh

pfannkuchen 1 hour ago | parent

Cricket?

wlesieutre 1 hour ago | parent

Certainly not the US, we only get the Golf R and GTI here and they're not particularly popular

For EVs, the e-Golf has been dead for years but they may bring the name back to electric as an id.Golf next time

ngruhn 1 hour ago | parent

whoops :P

Guid_NewGuid 1 hour ago | parent

I'm reminded of the cartoon that circulated some years back where a climate denier asks the speaker "what if we built a better world for nothing?", or something along those lines.

The way these past few years have shown the absolute precarity of fossil fuel systems just proves that, preserving a comfortably liveable climate aside, renewables just make more sense across pretty much every axis.

You still get people fear mongering about Chinese solar, as if we shouldn't make the most of the oversupply subsidised by a supposed geopolitical foe. Like, no, they're not going to turn it off, once you have the panel, the light hits it and the electrons jump the gap. Oil/gas can be turned off yet the speaker is somehow glossing over that.

encom 41 minutes ago | parent

>the light hits it and the electrons jump the gap

Yes, but the circuit is way more complex than that. You're dependant on the OEM for spare parts, support, software and whatever else, not to mention the problems inherent in putting this junk on the internet (which it will be). I am not fond of the idea of giving the CCP access to our infrastructure.

mattlondon 36 minutes ago | parent

Software? For a solar panel? Likewise spare parts? What?

I am pretty sure a solar panel is just a solar panel, a frame and some wires?

The inverters and all that sure whatever just buy local. Those have not been the bottleneck - the panels have been what has been enabling the boom.

cyberax 31 minutes ago | parent

You can have completely autonomous systems.

Also, really? You think that Internet-facing software in inverters is a big deal?

triceratops 30 minutes ago | parent

> You're dependant on the OEM for spare parts, support, software and whatever else

China also manufactures and exports ICE vehicle parts and fossil fuel extraction equipment. No one thinks that's a dangerous dependency.

Guid_NewGuid 24 minutes ago | parent

For battery storage systems sure, but for panels, not really. The panel breaks you just throw it away and buy another. And sure China can cut us off from buying another, but we have 15 years with most panels to use them while we build out local manufacture if needed. (even beyond that point you likely get usable output)

A panel is just a dumb slate of crystals that shoots out electrons, the wires and inverters and rest-of-system are up to us to design if we're indulging our China-panic. But we're basically being paid to take as many dumb panels as we can warehouse. Whether you believe that oversupply is a weapon, a mistake, or just normal industrial strategy is basically irrelevant.

neves 40 minutes ago | parent

And China didn't need to bomb any country to sell solar for us.

theK 16 minutes ago | parent

> The way these past few years have shown the absolute precarity of fossil fuel systems

I agree with you but wasn't the primary takeaway of these past years that there is so much corruption anywhere even remotely related to burnable fuel that one needs not one but two actual wars to provide a somewhat level playing field?

GuB-42 17 minutes ago | parent

Also not a first. The oil crisis (1973, 1979, ...) caused many countries to seek alternative energies (like nuclear), electrification, etc...

bryanlarsen 1 hour ago | parent

What's going on in Poland? Why is the EV market share there lower than in the US?

jadamczyk 1 hour ago | parent

Probably lower buying power, poor on-the-go charging network and people not “trusting” the Evs as much yet

brainwad 1 hour ago | parent

Also electric power generation is dirtier in Poland (still lots of coal), so the relative emissions benefit is lower.

somedude895 1 hour ago | parent

If the power is generated by burning coal and after transmission efficiency losses etc, gasoline cars could actually be better for the environment.

IsTom 42 minutes ago | parent

I think I've seen studies that they still aren't. ICE are really (thermally) inefficient.

throwawaytea 30 minutes ago | parent

Most people don't worry so much about thermal efficiency and care more about cost per mile..

If I could buy a type of vehicle that was only 10% thermally efficient but the fuel was practically free, that would be pretty cost effective even if not thermally efficient.

oytis 1 hour ago | parent

I mean, EVs are supposed to be cheaper than ICE vehicles. They probably would be if EU didn't let its automakers manufacture a high margin market again by blocking more affordable competitors

SpicyLemonZest 1 hour ago | parent

They weren’t until recently rich enough to fund the required charger infrastructure. Most people don’t want an EV until it flips from “not too big of a deal if you plan ahead” to “of course I can always find a charger”.

johanvts 1 hour ago | parent

EVs are still pretty expensive, besides I'm sure that PIS decided that EVs are somehow a communist plot and will let Tusk turn your kids atheist. EVs are only just around the tipping point where they are cheaper without political incentives. And you need some political good will for charging infrastructure etc.

tomwojcik 57 minutes ago | parent

We don't have a lot of superchargers etc. so you mostly rely on what you collect yourself.

EVs here make the most sense if you have solar panels on the roof, something to store the energy in and obviously a house.

Most of the Poles don't have a house.

Edit: superchargers map https://www.tesla.com/pl_pl/findus?bounds=60.47900349927211%...

I know it's not about Tesla only, but it says something.

ASalazarMX 38 minutes ago | parent

Local legislation can make a huge difference. In my country, you can install solar panels without storage, pump the electricity directly to the company, consume theirs, and pay the difference. Our house produces more than we consume, so charging an EV would still be mostly free for us.

If the energy company didn't buy our electricity, we would be forced to use batteries to store the surplus to charge the EV batteries.

The only disadvantage is that during a blackout, we still produce energy but can't use it. Fortunately blackouts are very rare in my region.

diath 56 minutes ago | parent

The median monthly gross income in Poland as of 2026 is 7.6k PLN ($1.9k USD) and like 80-90% of it will go towards your living costs, EVs will probably be a thing here in a decade or so when there's second hand market for cheap used ones coming imported from richer countries.

izend 1 hour ago | parent

Europe is going to have to build more electricity generation...

rwmj 1 hour ago | parent

It's distribution rather than generation which is the problem. Offshore wind farms generate copious electricity and then because of lack of interconnects they end up being paid to switch off on the windiest days. This will all be solved as more infrastructure is built.

fifilura 1 hour ago | parent

Or charge the EVS when the sun shines and the wind blows. Today you don't really need to charge your EV that often.

lapetitejort 55 minutes ago | parent

Or when the radioactive rocks shine

fifilura 50 minutes ago | parent

That is much more complicated and expensive.

kalabrium 1 hour ago | parent

I would love a world, where I while waiting at the traffic stop can breathe clean air. It’s sad to see that in the US the ev incentives are gone.

lotsofpulp 1 hour ago | parent

The EV incentives are not gone, they just changed from being a non refundable federal income tax credit to higher fossil fuel prices.

1over137 1 hour ago | parent

Tailpipe emissions are only half of it. The brake and tyre dust is the second half, and not solved by EVs.

lotsofpulp 1 hour ago | parent

If driven smoothly, EVs solve most of the brake dust problem.

vablings 1 hour ago | parent

They sadly also increase the tire problem significantly

standeven 59 minutes ago | parent

Exactly. And EVs are marginally heavier if tire dust is an actual concern. Massive SUVs and pickup trucks should be criticized first.

techdmn 58 minutes ago | parent

I have nearly 125k on a M3P, on the original pads. Right foot tends to be heavy on both pedals. Regen takes a lot of the load, makes a huge difference in pad usage / life.

bdamm 1 hour ago | parent

Brake dust is at least mostly solved by EVs, because regenerative braking does the vast majority of the braking work, thus no dust. Tire dust is real, but is going to be there no matter what kind of powertrain a vehicle has. EVs have more wear, but it is marginal. A Tesla Model 3 weighs less than any new pickup truck for sale today.

gloxkiqcza 43 minutes ago | parent

> A Tesla Model 3 weighs less than any new pickup truck for sale today.

I'm an EV fan but this is apples to oranges comparison. EV vehicles are substantially heavier than their ICE counterparts. Their instant torque also wears tread quicker. That's just facts and there's nothing wrong with that. The world is not black and white.

mattlondon 49 minutes ago | parent

Brake dust is significantly less. Modern EV specific tyres paired with moderated torque curves significantly mitigates the tyre dust.

Fossil fueled vehicles are still significantly worse for the environment and health (before you even start considering the wars and bloodshed for the fossil fuels that we're currently witnessing in Ukraine and Iran). Don't accept the propaganda.

ASalazarMX 46 minutes ago | parent

But you agree that if we can eliminate half of the problem, then we should do it, right?

throwawaytea 39 minutes ago | parent

My 13 Chevy Volt has 225k miles and is still on its original brake pads and rotors. The rotors are basically good as new, and the pads are at about 40-50%.

tencentshill 10 minutes ago | parent

More like 99% of it. But either way, perfect is the enemy of good.

mattlondon 44 minutes ago | parent

To be honest, in my experience, you don't need the incentives. Like what more do you actually need? Cheaper, faster, smoother, quieter, wake up every day to a full "tank", less things to go wrong. They're just better now - no one can deny that apart from absolute die-hard "petrol heads".

It's not like driving an EV has any actual downsides Vs a gasoline car any more? Yes yes I am sure people will reply saying how they need to drive 900 miles every day without stopping once while towing a trailer at 100mph etc. Most people don't need to do that, but hey enjoy spending your life doing that if that's your thing.

carlosjobim 36 minutes ago | parent

You need the money to buy one. Europeans do not have much money, and less and less of the working population have the employment arrangements which the banks demand to allow them to get a nice car loan, even if they wanted to borrow money for a new car. Gas vehicles can be purchased used from the past three decades.

Aaargh20318 32 minutes ago | parent

Taking out a loan for something that depreciates as fast as a car seems like the dumbest thing a person could do.

carlosjobim 26 minutes ago | parent

Well then the enlightened hacker argument simply turns into: "People who can't afford an electric car are stupid".

Aaargh20318 33 minutes ago | parent

> It's not like driving an EV has any actual downsides Vs a gasoline car any more?

Driving, no. Buying, yes. I bought a used car for €2600 8 years ago and it’s still going strong. That won’t buy me an EV. I drive maybe 1000 kilometers a year, the difference in fuel costs doesn’t make a dent in the difference in the initial purchase.

tpm 21 minutes ago | parent

> That won’t buy me an EV.

for now, but maybe in a few years it will

mattlondon 14 minutes ago | parent

You totally can get an EV for those sort of prices on the used market, e.g. https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?body-type=&channel=c...

No need to worry about cam belts or oil changes or spark plugs or mice eating your air filter or petrol going stale in the tank or replacing fuel filters or 12v batteries going flat if you don't drive them for at least 20 mins once every 10 days etc.

thraway3837 40 minutes ago | parent

It's not even about the incentives at this point. Americans in general are kind of dumb. The ones who aren't dumb have been driving EVs for a decade+. The rest are still "oh 300 miles isn't enough for me" "oh the cold kills the range by 10% oh no I'm going to get stuck" "oh, I have severe range anxiety". And these are all smart Harvard, Johns Hopkins educated people with multiple degrees. Not yokels.

People are out here spending $40k on a Camry and $50k on a Plugin Rav4 :facepalm:

99% of EV drivers (there is full data to support this so its not just an anecdotal claim) want another EV for their next car.

Once you've driven any EV, you will never want to go back to a gas car. Even if it's not for environmental reasons, the tech, smoothness, quiet are just magnitudes better than any gas car.

baq 31 minutes ago | parent

they aren't dumb at all, they count their dollars. they see cheap gas guzzlers, they buy them because they're cheap and gas is cheap. this is smart!

tax the gas guzzlers, tax gas, subsidize EVs and watch Americans rush to the dealerships to get EVs.

theK 5 minutes ago | parent

That is correct. I think the alleged "dumbess" comes most from voting for the people that won't do the things you mentioned in your second paragraph.

But as I always say, it is not a property exclusive to US citizens. currently it looks like there is a drinking contest on which country will do the most ridiculous election result. The US started it but Germany said "halt meine Leberwurscht" and whent straigt to the top.

theK 12 minutes ago | parent

Well, to be fair we Europeans kinda topped that by doing everything right and then in months killing all regulations that drove those things. #TechnologyOpenness

einpoklum 1 hour ago | parent

1. This is for "Battery EVs" (so probably not hybrid I guess)

2. I am somewhat suspicious of this statistic. A 70% jump in one month? I doubt it. Perhaps there was some change in regulation? Coordinated removal of models from the market? Or maybe a collapse in availability of some models or of car sales overall?

jdlshore 58 minutes ago | parent

3. A massive sustained oil crisis that can no longer be ignored

educar 38 minutes ago | parent

I wish cities would just outright ban private cars unless you get a permit for specific reasons.

luqtas 32 minutes ago | parent

oh no! your over estimating the hundreds of millions of USD saved from a health population that doesn't have to deal with air and noise pollution... also have you ever thought about the infrastructure of public transports? i don't cycle, much less mix myself in a metro/tram with all kind of people /s

Flere-Imsaho 29 minutes ago | parent

Absolutely.

Replaced with trams, which i used extensively when visiting amsterdam. It was such a joy to just hop on/off.