I think it just reinforces the point: the non-home charger installation and running business is basically not a for profit business. Which doesn’t mean EV’s are a load of crap. It does mean I think that we can be much less confident there won’t be hiccups in supply of chargers than we can be about businesses (corner convenience stores say, forget even gas stations) where you can just ignore it basically, if there’s profitable business to be done somebody will do it barring outside restrictions. With chargers it’s not directly profit based to begin with, either Tesla installing ‘enough’ to vaguely claim ‘hey there are chargers now all over the country’ without it being complete nonsense, or patchwork effort by govts (not a national program to have a huge network) or in VW’s case somebody being basically coerced to do it as a one off.
The Tesla chargers I notice most often are the ones at the big Delaware rest stop on I-95 which seem convenient for assuaging range concerns on NY area-DC drives. They installed a certain number. Maybe eventually they’ll install more. But meantime I think it’s reasonable to suppose the average wait time for those is going to rise as and if the number of Tesla’s in the I-95 corridor increases, and cases of long wait times at certain times also rise, and one would have to factor that into to buying one to frequently use on that trip.
Again of course if the household happens to have one car for commuting short distances and one for longer trips, mainly everyone seems to agree the commuter car could pretty easily be an EV if you can charge at home, aside for any other issue (like overall cost, which might also be favorable to EV in some comparisons). However where everyone doesn’t agree is how common it is that that’s really the division. Our two cars as of recently are a hauling-stuff capable SUV (15 yr old one we bought back from one or our kids in exchange for our older BMW sedan) and a sporty car (my M2). Some Tesla fans would claim their favorite vehicle is like or better than the M2 in that dept but I just don’t agree with them: they can do as they like with their money and me with mine. But it’s likely a lot of households don’t actually have a long/short trip division between their cars but some other division.
And again seems to really come back to could use an EV (without too much complaint) if ‘we’ bribe/force* them to have one. To which I’d say I’m sure it’s 10’s of % market share with a healthy dose of bribing/forcing. With today’s level of bribe/force I think it remains to be seen if a large % of consumers decide EV’s are for them, and with a laissez faire approach (no $7.5k buying subsidy, leave mileage standards as is or abandon them) then EV’s would probably remain a novelty item. Basically no alternative to gasoline cars as they’ve been is all that overwhelmingly attractive on a mass basis if you let gas retail for sub $3/gal, again unless maybe you really jack up the cost of ICE cars with highly inflated mpg standards car buyers aren’t demanding.
*fuel taxes as I mentioned before though that’s not so likely in the US political environment, but CAFE mpg standards much higher than what US consumers would demand is kind of a backdoor less economically efficient way to do the same thing as high fuel taxes.
You and I may have some fundamental disagreement though on the role of government in bootstrapping new technologies. We subsidize lots in our energy sector in particular. Nuclear power plants have been the beneficiaries for many decades and wouldn’t get built without them. Many renewables for much shorter periods of time to lesser degrees and with an actual approach to subsidy-free profitability. Tesla is having to phase out its tax-credit now and will either be profitable or not without it. Nissan is approaching that point.
No question that creating a charging infrastructure sufficient to allow cross country road trips on all-electric that is profitable as a stand-alone business (not as a part of the cost of selling the vehicles) is a ways away. I’d think quite a ways away because even with that in place those who really want frequent long distance road trips as a prime functionality right now, inclusive of peak travel times, are much better served by a car that can travel on gas, at least when it needs to.
That however leaves a huge amount of blue sky for growth from the current 2 to 3% of new vehicle sales.
Among all prospective vehicle buyers purchase price is the big limiter and about 36% would consider an EV purchase in the next two years. While longer range is a desired item only 36% care much about public charging along highways. That’s simply not the big deal item for most.
That 36% will have quite a ways to wait until an EV is a best choice for them. Before then is getting the prices down so that they are affordable even as entry level cars. Some industry experts see that happening much sooner than others do.
I gotta say, once you’ve had a taste of not having to stop at the gas station it is hard to go back.
My brother owns a model S and last year took it to California for Thanksgiving. Coming back he had to charge in Quartzite AZ, about twenty miles from the border, and had to wait an hour to get plugged in. This year he repeated and the number superchargers in Quartzite had been increased by 50% (I forget the actual number) and there was no wait.
& new car salesmen are known for trying to sell on monthly payment rather than total cost.
“Oh that payment’s too much, we’ll just extend it another year to bring it down; just ignore that that’s gonna cost you $1000 more in interest & you’ll probably still be paying off this car long after you wanna get rid of it.”
I wonder how much of that 64% that ‘don’t care’ about public charging either haven’t thought about a long trip or are just too dumb to realize what it means when they’re sold on you don’t need gas anymore.
No Dopers, of course; we’re waaay to smart for that.
Since you don’t trust consumers to be able to accurately report what they want maybe you can offer some other actual data?
You reporting you don’t qualify.
Is there anything to support the belief that more than 36% of prospective car buyers are bothered much by decreased long road trip utility in their next car purchase?
If you told me I had a 230 mile range and could only charge at home, I still would have bought my car. In the six months I’ve owned my car I needEd to charge away from home only on the trip I took specifically to experience and test the road trip infrastructure. While I frequently drive 100-160 miles between charges, I never need to go 200. YMMV
That said, I like knowing I can drive to Portland or Spokane if I feel like it and change up along the way. I expect I’ll do something like that once or twice a year.
No one has demanded that I buy an EV. That was settled back inpost #9. And I fully acknowledge that a one-car household that takes long trips several times a year is an outlier.
The question is, how much of an outlier am I? In most of the country, you have a densely populated urban core, then population density drops off very quickly. There are farm communities less than 20 miles from downtown St. Louis. I have friends who drive 100+ miles on Saturday mornings to watch football games at the University of Missouri or University of Illinois, then drive 100+ miles back that evening. Distance simply has a different meaning to us than it does to someone whose driving is almost exclusively a 15-mile commute to work, then 20 miles to Downtown for a special occasion.
I’m afraid we disagree on the that. The survey says “More than half of all prospective car buyers agree that lower purchase prices (59 percent) and longer PEV driving ranges (51 percent) would be most effective in increasing their interest in getting a PEV.” (Emphasis mine)
While “public charging along highways” might not be a top concern per se, range certainly is. If we go on a trip we’ll have to charge the damn things somewhere.
I’d also note Table 1. The only income category where “some interest” in getting an EV as their next vehicle outnumbers “no interest” is the $100K+ bracket.
My other takeaway from the survey is that we want the gummint to pay us to buy an EV. I wonder how Tesla sales will do when they lose their subsidy?
A lack of knowledge by prospective buyers lessens the value of the poll. I posted a link up-thread about the long wait times at charging stations during a holiday. In order for EV’s to work seamlessly there needs to be MORE charging stations (compared to ICE cars)during peak-use because of the extended charging time. In other words, if it takes X number of gas station pumps per 1000 cars it would take 4X number charging units because it takes 4 times longer to fast charge a car than it does to fill one up with gas.
I think you realize that most consumers live in those densely populated urban through suburban areas and fewer in those sparsely located farm communities.
Wanting more range ≠ wanting to go on a long distance road trip. I wanted over 200 miles in range and would have been less happy with the 170 mile range Leaf. Under that was unacceptable even for the occasional day without a road trip. I have almost no interest in driving the vehicle long distance road trips (other than to see if I could pull it off!). My answer before this purchase was yes range but no to chargers. Longer range, even over 300, hell even 500, would still be insufficient for a long distance road trip without rapid charging conveniently located on the road.
Yeah I note that right now those who have more money are less put off by the initial cost and more than half of people with that higher income have at least some interest (but are apparently too stupid to know that they are wrong). All comers again it is 36%, more not with some interest than do.
Magiver, most usage of EVs is for daily commuting. Most daily commuters will charge at home, there often only twice a week. Once again, I completely agree that EVs, even the long range Tesla, with their charging infrastructure, loses out to a basic ICE for the job of frequent long distance road trips, and that for those for whom that aspect is of prime importance an EV has serious drawbacks unless they have reliable access to an ICE vehicle (or at least PHEV) for that need.
But yeah, a PHEV with easy access to daily charging, with 50 miles of electric only range (such as the Honda Clarity PHEV or the Hyundai Ioniq PHEV), would allow those people to have the daily driving advantages of electric with the road trip utility of an ICE.
I think we all agree on the pros and cons of EV’s. I was just pointing out that many people aren’t up to date on them so the polls are flawed. The danger in that is a car company might act on them and build something the public really doesn’t want.
I just had a conversation with someone who showed an interested in an EV. It would be for a family and their current car situation probably wouldn’t work if it was their only vehicle. They do a lot of traveling and frankly my area is behind on chargers. I thought she’d be better of with a hybrid as an interim to an EV. If it was a 2nd car to get to work then an EV would be a good choice.
I agree, people making particular types of cars based on what casual polling said would be idiots. Again this doesn’t mean EV’s are BS or have no future. In many places there’s less tendency than in the US to argue that they aren’t really that subsidized or give half ass tu quoque arguments about nuclear subsidies (who proposed those on the thread?) or the common even more far fetched idea of fossil fuel subsidies (mainly imaginary, ‘the oil companies get to depreciate their assets to save on taxes!’…like every other business). In various other places, it’s more honest: ‘this stuff is heavily subsidized and it will be indefinitely’ and the public goes along, which is fine if that’s what they want.
Anyway the point is not directly about subsidy good/bad, it’s how the question is really not whether somebody answers a casual poll, nothing at stake, ‘yeah sure I’d consider an EV, I’m a modern open minded person, and climate change is important, my favorite late night comedian tells me so’. They will actually buy one, and not regret it, if it’s got real advantages, including bribes ($7.5k to buy it) or being in some way forced to. Which IMO is just a very cloudy outlook with the sort of wacky subsidy system ($7.5k till the particular model sells X units, the direct cause of the Volt’s death for example) and $2.50 gas.
The idea that people who don’t have EV’s would have seriously thought through the issue of ‘occasional’ longer trips before answering a poll question: joke. But sure, there are more people who don’t own EV’s and have a textbook ‘commuter car’ need than people who already own them. Also there are already EV SUV’s and soon pickups so it isn’t 100% one type of car. But today’s gasoline cars are highly refined (the theoretical simplicity=reliability argument in favor of EV’s isn’t very significant in reality) very cheap to buy and operate machines compared to typical incomes in a rich country without high fuel taxes. The real market potential of EV’s in the US is cloudy IMO assuming the bribe/force measures aren’t stepped up. But they could be.
It may be worth pointing out that the top three spots in Consumer Reports Customer satisfaction Survey are all electric: Tesla; the Volt (which was not killed by loss of the incentive but by GM’s plan to cut out all sedans and use the SUV profits to invest in pure EVs and self-driving for the future); and Nissan’s Leaf.
Take it for what it is worth.
And your presumption that most Americans are too stupid to think about the issue of road trips duly noted, my experience is that more people imagine taking them than do, and place more value on a less than once a year possible need than is rational. Heck AAA lauding the popularity of The Great American Road Trip brings up that 40% of households will go on a family vacation in 2019 and 53% of them by car … so about 21% of households will have a car road trip … and many of *them *are two car households.
Maybe, just maybe, not too many people are worried about charging on the road because they know their circumstances better than you imagine you do, and know that it is a low importance item.
And FWIW … we picked up the Leaf Plus last night. Omigod do I love this car! I had done a test drive in the Model 3 and hated it (one of the few I know) … I just love the e-pedal in particular.
Out of curiosity, do you know which driving mode you were in?
A few software updates ago, the Model 3 added “hold” mode, which is the equivalent of the e-pedal. That is, one-foot driving. I agree that it is fantastic. Most days I don’t have to touch the brake at all (except for shifting into gear).
I wish the collective WE would focus on batteries instead of the car. The cars themselves are technological nothing-burgers. The battery is a different matter.
if all the talking heads really give a crap then get together on a planetary “Manhattan Project” and come up with a significantly better battery. Done.
I think there’s already a lot of research going into battery technology. Note that the most recent Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three scientists for work done to develop lithium-ion batteries, which are the type of batteries in many EVs. But this work was done decades ago, with one of them getting a patent in 1977. So these things take a while.
Well yes but that is why i made reference to the “Manhattan Project”. If global warming is real then act like it and put everything you’ve got into it.
Unlike nuclear weapons, there’s no evidence that there’s a kind of order of magnitude increase available in battery technology.
The limitations at this point aren’t so much in the technology but the economics. Batteries need to be cheaper to bring EVs down in price. And that can only come by producing more of them at larger, more efficient factories.
Lots of investment in battery production is already happening. I wish there were more, but the trajectory isn’t bad.
A Manhattan Project/Apollo program/etc. might be ok for achieving some particular, singular goal, but is not great for producing things at a low price for lots of people.
There is a high and low setting for the regen, as well as a “chill mode” that smooths out the transitions. It can be modulated, but takes a bit of getting used to. The trick is just to ease off the accelerator. Also, if coming up to a red light that’s a ways away, you can just slooooowly let off the accelerator. It’s a little odd at first giving it “gas” as you approach a light, but you get used to it reasonably quickly.
In any case, congrats on the purchase! All EVs are a huge step forward.
