The main reason EVs aren’t selling well has to do with the main reason for buying an EV.
People are told how how extremely quick EVs are; that they are much quicker-accelerating than almost any vehicle with an engine, especially otherwise comparable vehicles. And it’s true. The typical EV is very quick. Most EV crossovers are quicker than almost any V8-powered muscle car, even.
For a muscle car, quickness is a hot selling point. It is – along with how they look – the main muscle car selling point.
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It’s why they are called “muscle cars.”
But muscle cars were never sold as practical – much less economical – cars. You were buying a muscle car because what mattered most was how much power it had and how quickly it got to 60 and through the quarter mile. Almost nothing else mattered.
Not range, certainly.
It was understood – it was accepted – that a muscle car had not much range because it used up a lot of gas (very quickly) in order to get to 60 in six seconds or so – which was how quick most of the quickest muscle cars of the ’60s and early ’70s were. It didn’t matter, because almost no one bought a muscle car with the idea that it would be their daily driver – much less their family vehicle. It would be like a woman buying a bikini to go to work – at the bank – in.
Also, it didn’t matter that a muscle car’s range was not-much because even if it got 6 miles-per-gallon, it only took a minute or two to put six gallons back in the tank. Five minutes or so to completely fill it. So even if a muscle car could only go 150 miles in between fill-ups, it didn’t matter all that much – at least in terms of the inconvenience – because it could be ready to go another 150 in five minutes or so.
But EVs aren’t muscle cars – at least not primarily. Most are sedans or five-door crossovers, like the ’24 Volvo XC40 Recharge I recently test drove. Vehicles, in other words, that are supposed to serve primarily as practical transportation.
Not – primarily – as quick transportation.
That’s when quickness becomes a problem.
Evidently, Volvo understands this. It is why Volvo – and I use this as specific example to make the general point – altered the 2024 XC40 Recharge to emphasize practicality over performance. The XC40 Recharge originally came standard with 400-plus horsepower and two electric motors that turned the wheels very quickly, emulating the Tesla marketing model. This five-door crossover is as quick (zero to 60 in about 4.5 seconds) as a two-door Mustang GT with a 400-plus horsepower V8.
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It is quicker than this writer’s classic V8-powered muscle car.
It takes a lot of power to go that quickly and all that power takes a lot of energy – whether electrical or chemical. Classic muscle car owners – and Mustang GT buyers – don’t care; they own a classic muscle car because it isn’t practical. They buy a Mustang GT because it is quick.
If it were slow, they wouldn’t – irrespective of how practical it might be.
But why do people – most people – buy a five-door crossover such as the XC40? It is not primarily because it is quick – else they’d be looking at something like the Mustang GT. Volvo and other EV makers are trying to sell performance as a way to get people’s minds off of impracticality.
