That whole post is exactly what the OP was talking about. EVs don’t have to meet every possible use case before anybody is allowed to buy them. At the moment they are great options for people in industrialized countries who have access to home charging, typically drive less than 100-200 miles per day (depending on the EV), and can afford an EV as their next car. The further you move from that best case, the less fitting an EV will be. Why is that so hard for the detractors in this thread to understand?
Those of us who drive EVs are better aware of their shortcomings than people who just hate on them on the Internet. Those of us who drive EVs have also all driven ICE cars for a long time, and are also aware of their shortcomings.
EV technology is moving very fast. The optimal pool for EV ownership is growing continuously. I’m sure many underdeveloped countries are desperate to replace their fleets of polluting motorcycles and scooters with clean EV motorcycles and scooters.
As for rough roads, there are lots of EV dirt bikes. If what you mean by “rough roads” is taking an EV on a 2000 km journey into the outback of Australia, then yeah, I don’t think there are any EVs capable of that. Buy you know what, that doesn’t make any difference to somebody living in suburban US.
I don’t know where you live, but I have never lived anywhere that this is true. Most people I am aware of park in the street or a parking lot without access to power, or park in their driveway. I am, literally, the only person I know who parks in a garage at night. Both of my neighbors have garages, but park in their driveways because their garages are full of junk. All EV proponents here appear to think we are all living in 1980s suburbia with an attached 2 car garage on a 3000 square foot McMansion.
EVs are a suburban toy of the 10% right now, as shown above with all the “So what if it costs as much as a luxury car” and “Oh boy it’s fun to drive!” posts. Most folks want a car that goes when you push the button and can dependably get them from A to B. If you live in the suburban enclaves of the metro areas of the coasts you are probably in the niche to use an EV as a daily driver. Otherwise plan on about 5 - 10 years before it makes sense.
For the bottom 25% of the population it will probably be closer to 50 years as they will be driving the cast-off ICE cars until they can’t buy gas anymore or they last one rusts out.
I park in my driveway, not a garage, every night and charge my EV. A neighbor parks in the street and charges his from a line he ran under the sidewalk. You do realize that charging stations don’t need to be indoors or covered, right?
I keep reading that the car does all this looking things up and navigating for you. Are all EVs equipped with some kind of cell connectivity? How does it get the locations of charging stations updated? How does it know where you are or where you are going? Who else has access to this data?
If cell signal is a requirement of driving an EV then that is another reason that about 80% of my state would be a no-drive zone.
I would posit that the biggest reason that EVs are a “suburban toy of the 10%” is up-front cost. If EVs cost the same to purchase as IC cars (including used cars), what % of people in the US would probably buy an electric car instead? I would peg the number at 30-60%. What do you think?
None of this is peculiar to EVs. ICE cars sold recently have navigation systems built in and can do things like direct you to the nearest Starbucks. The navigation relies on GPS, while the locations of places can be stored. Without knowing precisely how it’s done, I can speculate that the car can download updated data when it’s in cell range and store it for when it’s not.
And, um, those are mostly competing with small cheap petrol-powered things that have the same limitations.
I don’t think it would be that high, mostly because the EV-enthusiast friends who have purchased used EVs have all run into issues with the battery losing range. Maybe that problem has been solved, maybe it hasn’t. But until there is a robust market of used EVs that have a decent life expectancy, and everyone understands how they will hold up, I expect most drivers to be cautious about purchasing a used EV.
The average cost of new cars sold in the US is over $37,000. There are several new EVs available below this cost, including the base model Tesla Model 3 and Chevy Bolt.
Teslas have built in cell modems, and I’m near certain the Mach-E will as well. The Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf apparently link a smartphone app to their infotainment systems.
Look a few lines further down in your own cite and you’ll see the average cost of an electric vehicle is $55,351, which certainly lends credibility to the “rich man’s toy” argument.
Another issue I see is where those cars are. When I look on cars.com I see 45,337 vehicles for sale within 30 miles of my home. Of those, only 84 are electric vehicles. 23 of them are new vehicles that cost less than $37,000. That’s 23 in an area with a population of around 2.5 million.
And every one of those 23 new vehicles is either a Chevy Bolt or a Nissan Leaf (no base Teslas available here.)
(I’d argue that no one would pay $27,000+ for a Nissan Leaf or Chevy Bolt if it weren’t electric, but we’ll put a pin in that for now.)
By contrast, I looked up my sister’s zip code in SoCal. 50,016 total vehicles, 463 electric, 270 new. With only 10% more vehicles, my sister has more than 5x the choice of EVs, and more than 10x the choice of a new vehicle, including models that aren’t even sold where I live.
Scarcity is one of the factors driving EV prices up, but I don’t see prices coming down until there’s more demand, and I don’t see demand growing until there’s a better selection of vehicles available at a moderate price.
But that average includes luxury cars, performance cars, pickup trucks, and EVs.
If you compare the price of a comparable car an EV is twice as expensive as a midsize sedan (Tesla) or a small crossover (Leaf, Bolt).
As I said upthread, EVs are still in the “early adopter” phase, where they’re more expensive and the infrastructure is still immature. Remember how it was for early adopters of VCRs, DVD players, and other electronic goods?
Come January, when there is a 5 foot pile of snow between the house and the drive it might become a bit of a problem. And I think the plow would probably make short work of any cable I ran out to the street.
So you park in your garage, and your neighbors park in their driveways. But now your concern is that you can’t install the charger on the street? Fine, I’ll help you move your goalposts. Home charging stations typically have a 15-20’ cord, with longer ones available, so just set your station back from the snowplow zone.
Automobiles 1895-1908 (pre-Model T Ford) were quite “rich men’s toys”; early adopters were elite playboys, or commercial users like taxi-cabbers. This parallels early video recording technology with commercial use (broadcasting) or rich sex-partiers. EV’s differ because they’ve been evolving for around 150 years. They’ll be useful eventually.
I have no goalposts. I was commenting on your solution. Just pointing out why outside charging is not likely to be practical in the half of the country that has this pesky little thing we call winter.
Even if they put a charging station where you suggest they would have to wade through a several feet of dirty snow every time they wanted to use it.
I’ve lived in snowy places, and we managed to use shovels to clear a path to things we needed to access. I’m assuming you also need to access your car somehow, and you’ve evidently figured that part out.
As has been said countless times, there are valid reasons that EVs don’t work for some people currently. There’s no need to invent made up ones. If you park in your own driveway, you can install a charging station, even if it snows.
