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Range is no longer an issue for electric cars in most of Europe. Here in Norway 70% of new cars sold in November were battery electric with the Tesla Model Y b
by kwhitefoot 5y ago
Range is no longer an issue for electric cars in most of Europe. Here in Norway 70% of new cars sold in November were battery electric with the Tesla Model Y being the winner. For the year as a whole more than 60% of cars sold are electric and the Model Y is the winner. Also sold are lots of Citroen, Renault, VW, Audi, Jaguar, and a substantial number of Porsche and some Toyotas.
My 2015 Model S 70D has a range of 330 km in summer a little less in the winter. I use a supercharger to add perhaps 40% charge about once a week, the rest of the time I charge overnight.
Hardly anyone needs 600 miles and no one seems concerned that it takes an hour to add 300 km because most people charge overnight.
14.8% of private cars in Norway are electric now, more than 25% if you include hybrids.
The only thing holding most people back from buying electric is the cost and that is why we have so many in Norway, at the moment they are exempt from the purchase taxes and annual fees that ICE cars must pay.
- cosmodisk 5y agoWhat's the infrastructure like in Norway for the car owners who live in flats? As others commented, it's not the range that is an issue( I could cross my entire country with one charge in most EVs) but rather the charging infrastructure. Also the purchasing power in more than half of Europe makes EVs prohibitively expensive.
- _0w8t 5y agoAt least in the capital it is unproblematic. The charging places on the streets that supplies at least 3KW are common, parking garages advertise that they have many charging places (one near me states over 100 spots for about 300 parking places in total), there are a lot of fast charges with at least 50KW chargers. Still you may need to park the car 500 meters or father from the apartment on unlucky day when all the spots nearby are taken. On the other hand outside the cities the situation became worse during the last year based on my anecdotal observations. One may need to wait at charging stations for another car to leave. Clearly the pace of building those lags behind the number of cars.
- aakour 5y agoTo counter all the whataboutism in the replies to your comment, I just wanted to say that I live in a flat in central Berlin and park on the street, and charging or range have never been actual issues. My car use consists of trips around Berlin and Germany, driving to rural Finland and back, regularly towing a trailer, etc.
- speedgoose 5y agoI think we started to pay some of the annual fees last year. Your insurance probably increased a little bit because of that.
- underscore_ku 5y ago74% :P https://electrek.co/2021/12/03/norway-again-shows-all-electric-car-future-closer-than-people-think/ https://electrek.co/2021/12/03/norway-again-shows-all-electr...
- throwawayay02 5y agoBut how can people living in cities charge their cars overnight? Does each private garage spot have it's own electricity meter?
- turbinerneiter 5y agoPeople living in cities don't need cars. At least, that should be the goal.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- thanatos519 5y agoIn Amsterdam when you have an EV you can ask the city to install a new charging point near you: https://oplaadpuntaanvragen.amsterdam.nl/ https://oplaadpuntaanvragen.amsterdam.nl/ Also EV owners are spoiled in several other ways: https://www.amsterdam.nl/en/parking/electric-charging/ https://www.amsterdam.nl/en/parking/electric-charging/
- xbmcuser 5y agoWhy does it need to be overnight though. Cars are also parked 9-5 when people are at work easily long enough for a full charge also with the added benefit of cars getting charged with solar in many places. As more electric cars get on the road the charging infrastructure will get built. At night charging will get expensive in the future as more electric cars and start charging at night.
- avianlyric 5y agoUse charging point in the street, if it a communal or private garage install a charging point. A basic charging point capable of charging a car and accurately measuring consumption for the purpose of charging costs about $700. Electricity meters are extremely simple and cheap devices. There’s literally nothing probative about installing one in every parking space. While your at it, might as well integrate a proper car charger.
- 5y ago
- zemvpferreira 5y agoAs a fellow European you are grossly overstating the convenience of electrics based on a very special experience of living in Norway. Western Europe (where I live) relies on street parking and has very little capacity for overnight charging. I regularly see people camping out for chargers in mall parking lots. I can't imagine the situation is much different in urban Romania, Poland or Lithuania. I wish we had a charging grid that allowed for most private cars to be electric without any range anxiety, but that's just not true right now. You might also wish for street parking to go away (I do) but that's not happening either.
- Krasnol 5y agoIt's still hard even in Germany and than you have broken charging stations on the Autobahn or fossil cars parking on charging spots (even though it's punishable now). Your employer won't have charging station at his place "because". You don't have one at home because you don't live in a house and so on. We're seeing just another dividing line going through our society here. An fully electric car says a lot about your income. It's like a huge new IPhone everybody can see.
- _0w8t 5y agoThe first paragraph describes the situation in Norway that was like 5-6 years ago. The second is less applicable in Norway due to zero tax policy on electric cars and like 100% in total taxes on ICE. So even 5 years ago it could be sensible to get an electrical car for a family with kids. Still at that time people complained in Oslo that electric cars were for the rich folk that got them as the second car to drive in bus lines and avoid traffic jams.
- Krasnol 5y agoUnfortunately I don't believe much will change with the new German government as the green party gave away the Ministry of Transport to get the more prestigious Foreign Ministry....yeah. Btw...did you see the new BMW SUV? So awesome!!111elf
- peoplefromibiza 5y agofriendly reminder: Norway represents Europe same way Alaska is representative of USA.
- xorcist 5y agoWell, nothing really is representative, is it? Norway is a sparsely populated, thin country over a vast distance, and the northern half has some pretty harsh winter conditions. Put another way: If Norway can, surely Germany and Spain can.
- peoplefromibiza 5y agoit's the opposite I park on the street and live at the fourth floor, I can't charge overnight at home. Even if there was a charging station, there are at least 100 other cars in the parking spots below my building. So you'd need dozens of them. If Norway can, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Austria, etc have to solve a ton of problems Norway simply doesn't have.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoPlenty of people living in Oslo have exactly the same problem. The fact that some, even many, people are unable to use something doesn't many that a large number of other people in the same country can't use it. In my travels in Germany, France, Italy, I saw plenty of houses with off street parking. Not the majority of course but a significant minority.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago> Plenty of people living in Oslo have exactly the same problem Plenty of people in Oslo means the same population of one neighborhood of one big city like Rome, Milan, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, etc. The entire Norway population would fit in Rome. > I saw plenty of houses with off street parking True, and those are the areas where generally infrastructure is lacking behind and you have to travel to a close town to find a gas station.
- dmitriid 5y ago> Hardly anyone needs 600 miles and no one seems concerned that it takes an hour to add 300 km because most people charge overnight. Yes, hardly anyone needs 600 miles, but if you can't find a place to charge overnight, boom, you wake up to 80 kilometers left in your charge, and you need to find a fast charger somewhere in the vicinity, and high chances are, it wil be occupied by other cars. You grossly overestimate availability of chargers in Europe (or anywhere, for that matter)
- Ekaros 5y agoI used to live in different town. One way trip 160km. Mix of freeway and highway. Could charge at work there. No such luck at other end. My cheap b-segment car managed trip both ways and some weeks of regular use with one tank. But I have read from news that electric-cars can't do similar round-trip all the way at highway speeds. So in addition to having find charging point somewhere, I would have had to spend extra half-an-hour driving slower... Not to even think of winter case... And no public-transport would be even slower than electric car with some charging...
- dtech 5y agoConsidering that you can (slowly) charge an EV even with a normal socket, this overnight road trip problem seems vastly overstated to me. A socket and cable reel you should be able to scrounge up anywhere you can reach on asphalted roads.
- FooBarWidget 5y agoI live in an appartment, as do many others. Good luck reeling your cable from the 4th floor to your car which is 100m away and with a sidewalk between. Even if you can do it, not sure whether you will get fined for it.
- llampx 5y agoCute that you think everyone can find parking in front of their apartment and that the cable won't be a trip and fire hazard.
- 5y ago
- thendrill 5y agoI bet you live in Southern Norway. Good luck driving electric in the North. Also. Electric cars are slow.... Good luck holding 120 kph with an electric and not watch the battery melt.
- vegardx 5y agoI know several people that live "in the north" that have BEV. They seem to be doing fine. I regularly drive for 4 hours straight on highway speeds on a single charge. The battery doesn't melt. I don't know where you get that idea from, certainly not reality.
- rconti 5y agoGood electric cars are not slow any more than good ICE cars are slow. If you don't think EVs can handle 120kph perhaps you should visit California. I quite regularly hold 140kph, it's simply not an issue. By the way, where are you going 120kph? I think I averaged 80kph between Bergen and Oslo. I was shocked at how slow typical road speeds are in Norway.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoI bet you don't live in Norway at all and I also doubt that you have first hand experience of driving an EV. My battery doesn't melt at 120 kph nor does it melt at 240 kph on the autobahn.
- ZeljkoS 5y agoI beg to disagree. South Europe is not like Norway: https://svedic.org/tech/daddy-did-you-really-need-electric-car https://svedic.org/tech/daddy-did-you-really-need-electric-c...
- freshpots 5y agoA lot of that is bad preparation/understanding of an EV. They didn't plan well nor bring their charging cable on a road trip.
- lodovic 5y ago>Hardly anyone needs 600 miles and no one seems concerned that it takes an hour to add 300 km because most people charge overnight. I could do with a 200km range for my daily commute, but I also have a camping trailer that I'd like to use at least once every year for a 1000km+ trip. This is just not feasible with the current generation of EVs. I could imagine loading up the camping trailer with batteries to give me that 1000+ km range, though that will increase the weight and recharging at the destination is usually impossible.
- nickspacek 5y agoThis isn't the convenient answer we want, but I keep thinking that personally I should invest in a vehicle that suits 90% of my transportation needs, and plan to rent for the other 10%. It is likely the better financial approach, although it's definitely not a silver bullet.
- mkbosmans 5y agoThe issue with that approach is that renting is a lot more expensive than owning a car long-term. Something like 4x. This means that the small car you buy should be at least 40% cheaper than the car you would originally have bought and are now renting 10% of the time. At that price difference you are probably giving up on a lot more than just range and towing capacity for your daily driver.
- ppg677 5y agoDoesn't it get cold in Norway? I live in the Upper Midwest of the U.S. In our colder months, the range of a Tesla can drop in nearly half.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoDo you know this from first hand experience? Or is it just something you heard somewhere? It is certainly not my experience of my 2015 Model S 70D. If it is really cold (-20C) and I am doing short journeys (so the battery never gets warm) then it might drop by 25%.
- macinjosh 5y agoIn America 600 miles is a short road trip.
- rakejake 5y agoHaha, while relatively common, I wouldn't call it "short". That's like going from SoCal all the way to Norcal, or Atlanta to Miami. 10+ hours of driving.
- saltcured 5y agoAnd for anybody reading, Norcal in this example does not mean San Francisco, which is ~350 miles driving from Los Angeles. Driving 600-700 miles would be going from Los Angeles to the Oregon border or San Diego to Redding in far Northern California...