EVs currently have like less than 5% market share. Most vehicles isn’t really a consideration. If adoption tripled it would be a huge impact, and that’s not even approaching most. For lots of people EVs are probably not right for them. But for a ton of people, EVs would be a far superior choice.
This was it for me. I like the savings, the lack of refueling, etc. But I bought a Tesla because it is pretty awesome to drive. I’m past the intersection at a stop light before the car next to me has crossed the line. It wasn’t a value proposition - I just like it.
EVs account for about 3% of cars, 90+% of charging is done at home, and EV cars themselves have been on the market for maybe 10 years. Of course the “on the road charging” infrastructure is spotty today.
The point is that EVs are improving by leaps and bounds, costs are coming down and ranges, the biggest issue in EV ownership, are increasing. As the EV population increases, so will the infrastructure. There is very little to prevent EV infrastructure from being built. It piggy backs on the electrical infrastructure we have today, incrementally adding usage as more chargers are installed. Chargers themselves are small, relatively cheap and straightforward to install, as opposed to gas stations which require a significant investment.
Heck, I didn’t even get to drive JoseB’s Tesla, it’s bigger than I like, there’s some features about its dashboard I definitely do not like… and yet I came out going “oooOOOOoooOOOOOH WANNA!”
Or you just get the Columbia, MO supercharger, which appears to be (per google maps) only a 5 minute difference in route time for a normal trip between St. Louis and Kirksville.
Yes, this is an inconvenience, but it’s not a 4 hour inconvenience.
That is, IF I drive a Tesla. From what I can tell (correct me if I’m wrong) all of the non-Tesla public charging facilities are Level 2. If I drive anything other than a Tesla, I’m going to make a long recharging stop somewhere.
So many people are saying “electric vehicles” when what they really mean is “Teslas.”
The EPA is not a mystical divine force. They are competent people using a formula. And as I said, in the specific case of not having an inexpensive place to charge - there’s not a cost savings with an EV. Which is a fact, unless you just disbelieve Tesla’s numbers and imagine that the “EPA” is always right.
This reduces the market prevalence that EVs can even reach - again, my “B” example, one of the most commonly sold cars in America, works for everyone. (though most people buy the non-hybrid version of the Rav4).
Though, actually, the interesting bit is that it appears Americans only care somewhat about fuel economy:
**Most-popular SUVs (2018)
**Toyota RAV4 – 427,168
Nissan Rogue – 412,110
Honda CR-V – 379,021
Chevrolet Equinox – 332,621
Ford Escape – 272,228
Ford Explorer – 261,571
Toyota Highlander – 244,511
Jeep Wrangler – 240,032
Jeep Cherokee – 239,437
Jeep Grand Cherokee – 224,908
**Most-popular cars (2018)
**Toyota Camry – 343,439
Honda Civic – 325,760
Toyota Corolla – 303,732
Honda Accord – 291,071
Nissan Sentra – 213,046
Nissan Altima – 209,146
Hyundai Elantra – 200,415
Ford Fusion – 173,600
Chevrolet Malibu – 144,542
Chevrolet Cruze – 142,618
**Most-popular trucks (2018)
**Ford F-Series – 909,330
Chevrolet Silverado – 585,582
Ram Pickup – 536,980
Toyota Tacoma – 245,659
GMC Sierra – 219,554
Chevrolet Colorado – 134,842
Toyota Tundra – 118,258
Nissan Frontier – 79,646
Nissan Titan – 50,459
GMC Canyon – 33,493
There are no hybrids listed, nor EVs. Also, totaling:
3 million SUVs sold 2018, 2.3 million cars sold 2018, 2.9 million trucks sold in 2018.
Not account for tails - the truck numbers drop rapidly, such that any truck series not in the top-10 sells very little, but the SUV/car categories have longer tails. This makes the real ratios 48% SUV, 32% car, 20% truck. Here.
No, non-Tesla vehicles have their own version of “supercharging”, either CHAdeMo for Japanese cars or CCS for U.S. and European. There are probably several such chargers near you. Any plug-in finder site will allow you to filter by either of those types.
The Model 3 will probably make that list for 2019. See here (though note that it’s an estimate). That said, it would not shock me if it drops off again for 2020 when the Model Y makes an appearance.
Well, that’s the reality right now. Tesla has invested a great deal into the Supercharger network, and as such they’re really the only choice if long road trips are important to you. But at the same time, you can’t dismiss EVs as a whole just because the others are farther behind.
The others will catch up. As said, competitive fast charging standards exist, and more stations are being built all the time. Still, it’ll probably be several years before the other networks are on par (Tesla isn’t standing still, either).
Not everyone needs charging for long road trips. People with a second ICE car, or more willing to rent, can easily get away with just home charging.
I was responding specifically to YamatoTwinkie’s statement that I could route my St. Louis-Kirksville trip through Columbia. I should have been more clear, and said that, as far as I can discern, there is a Tesla supercharger, but there are no Level 3 chargers in Columbia, MO.
And what’s with the three incompatible charging systems, anyway? I think someone pointed out upthread that there’s a CHAdeMo/CCS adapter available, but Tesla vehicles can only be charged with Tesla systems? Is that correct? This is Beta/VHS, Apple/PC, Blu-Ray/HD-DVD stuff all over again. If I drive a diesel-fueled vehicle, I may have to look around for a station that sells diesel, but at least I don’t have to consult an app to learn whether it’s diesel for Volkswagen or diesel for Chevrolet.
Add the fact that a number of electric vehicles aren’t even sold outside of the West Coast and maybe parts of the Northeast, and I feel like even the manufacturers are hedging their bets about EV technology.
No, as I understand it, Tesla owners can use the others with an adapter. The rest of us, however, cannot use Tesla chargers.
Longer term, I think it’s likely that the charging networks will be independent of the vehicle manufacturers, much as gas stations are. And ideally, there will be only one charging standard. But if there’s not, perhaps chargers will have multiple cables or adapters to support various standards.
As phrased, that’s backwards (though I think you may have it right in your head)–only Tesla vehicles can be charged with Tesla chargers. There is no (official) adapter that takes a Tesla plug and converts it to one that works on a Bolt/I-Pace/eTron/etc. But a Tesla vehicle can stop at a CHAdeMO station and (with an adapter) charge from it. Or, soon, a CCS station.
It is. I think standards chaos is probably the inevitable early result of any new technology. It’ll work itself out in time. For the time being, it’s not really a big deal, and getting less of a big deal all the time. It looks like Tesla can continue supporting and growing the Supercharger network on their own if need be; although I think it’ll go away eventually, the motivation to merge it with the others is pretty weak. They’ll be like Apple in that regard; they won’t necessarily be the biggest player in the long run, but they’ll be big enough to continue supporting their own proprietary standard.
Well, if the app is configured right, the incompatible stations just won’t appear at all. With Tesla, it’s all handled in-car. You map a route and the car figures out where you need to stop. It’s really quite easy.
At this point, they aren’t hedging, per se. Everyone knows that EVs will dominate in a decade or two. But how to survive the transition? It’s going to be tricky. And in the meantime, states and countries are going to apply ever more extreme restrictions. Automakers sell EVs on the West coast because California CARB standards require it (or purchasing expensive ZEV credits from others–like Tesla). It’s still too early for them to sell true mass-market EVs, so for now they sell the minimum necessary. They’re still working on the real transition in the background (well, most of them are).
I think that’s the likeliest outcome, but I’m by no means certain of that. Charging networks aren’t really like gas stations. You need fewer of them, and they have a different geographical distribution.
The Supercharger network could still use improvement, but not by a lot. Tripling the number of stations (and upgrading them to Gen3) would make it virtually seamless. And tripling isn’t that problematic, given Tesla’s likely trajectory. In a few years, they’ll want that many stations and will be able to easily maintain them.
So it’s possible that Tesla will maintain a proprietary network for a long time to come. What happens depends a lot on the other automakers and how the law evolves. Model 3s in Europe already have CCS connectors by default, and Superchargers there support the CCS standard (though I think they still can’t charge non-Tesla cars). Maybe the US will get similar laws, or maybe Tesla will decide just to apply the European standards to the US for consistency.
In short, I dunno. I think there are several plausible outcomes here.
I don’t think electric vehicles are quite ready yet to serve most of the population, mostly because they are still pricey.
But I wanted to make twi points:
The infrastructure to charge at home is like the infrastructure for AC. No, not everyone has it. Yes, it costs something to install. None the less, most apartments (with parking) will offer charging, because the market will pay for it. (Except the infrastructure for charging us much cheaper than for AC, because it draws less power.)
You don’t need an enclosed garage to charge, just a spot with power. My local whole foods has power cords outside. So does the lot I park at when I go out dancing. The first time I charged in the rain it occurred to me that I might electrocute myself, but there were no warnings or anything, unlike gas stations that warn not to touch your cell phone while pumping. Having now charged lots of time in foul weather, I no longer worry about it.
Keep in mind that Elon Musk explicitly has stated several times (most recently during the Y reveal) that Tesla was started up precisely to drive the other automakers to making EVs workable. So far as I can tell, it’s working.
What kind of vehicle?
Yes, what you made up. The idea that ‘going out’ was a zero-distance trip did not come from me. Neither did the idea that a weekend trip starts Saturday morning and not Friday after work. You made up a bunch of stuff to ‘prove’ that the scenario I came up with was incorrect, and now I trying to claim that I changed the scenario because the stuff you made up wasn’t part of it.
If it doesn’t matter, then why do you keep arguing it? Rather than discuss the actual scenario I brought up or ask for clarification, you and your pals keep insisting that I didn’t know what my own scenario was and that I was incorrect when I quite clearly was correct from the start.
The reason I keep talking about it is that I am responding to people talking about it. If people would stop bringing it up and claiming that I was dishonest for looking up the price of a vehicle that someone else mentioned, I wouldn’t have anything to respond to.
You making unsupported bald declarations does not magically make them true. It would be nice if the EV fanatics would engage in real discussion instead of a weird mix of bad assumptions and false declarations combined with contempt.
I will note again that YOU are the one who won’t stop talking about the absurdly expensive high range car. I am responding to you, but would not be discussing the car if you’d stop harping on that laughably expensive thing.
So what you’re saying is that EVs are not suitable vehicles for real people who don’t act like automatons and sometimes don’t charge a device or stay at another person’s house where charging isn’t available? That’s a stronger claim than I was making!
Often enough to worry about it, for real people dealing with real situations and not the automatons who never do anything but follow a proscribed routine while driving EVs with batteries that never degrade.
Half of all people have an above average commute, it’s not some weird edge case. Lots of people do not plug in electronic devices every night, it’s not some weird edge case. There were no errands mentioned in the scenario, not sure why you included ‘errands’. Driving to a nearby town is a fairly common activity, it’s not some weird edge case. People’s commute generally doesn’t change day to day, having the same commute Friday as Thursday is REALLY not some kind of edge case. Having no convenient fast chargers is what the charging map provided by EV proponents shows, it’s not some weird edge case. Having no charging ability at a friend’s house covers the majority of dwellings in the US, it’s not some weird edge case.
It’s really silly that EV proponents want to act like a bunch of really ordinary stuff is some kind of extreme absurd example.
The fact that EV proponents want to pretend that EV batteries will always maintain the same capacity unlike every other battery I’ve encountered in an electronic device, and in spite of the empirical evidence that actual EV batterys drop to 80% of capacity in the ‘typical case’ and 90% of capacity in the best case according to sources provided by EV proponents is pretty telling. Why are you so averse to looking at real world scenarios that multiple people will keep arguing that it’s somehow dishonest to assume an EV ever has anything but factory-fresh capacity?