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You don't need to be against EVs to be concerned about range. You can be pro EV and still be anxious that current ones won't fit your life situation. Let's not

You don't need to be against EVs to be concerned about range. You can be pro EV and still be anxious that current ones won't fit your life situation. Let's not polarize unnecessarily.

speedgoose 5y ago
True, but usually people asking for a lot of range are looking for arguments to dismiss EVs. It's very few people who actually need more range than what is offered today, assuming you have a charging network developed where you drive.
- zemvpferreira 5y ago
  In my experience this dismissive attitude you're talking about used to be much more common 5 years ago than it is now. Many people today want to go electric but are concerned about their own use case, and their expressions of range anxiety are personal concerns, not points of virtue. The way to ease them into it is to be a good role model, not to debated them on absolute terms. The paradigm has changed for the better.
cycomanic 5y ago
The problem is that the range arguments are always brought as if they were a general use case. Most people will have maybe 1 or 2 trips a year that go over 500km in one trip. They still insist on buying a car for being able to do that trip, instead of buying a car for their general use case and renting a car for that one trip (if really necessary). Similar arguments for being able to transport 7 people, pulling a trailer, going off road etc.. People hardly ever need this they still buy cars because of this capability. Even disregarding electric cars, it doesn't make any economic sense.
- necovek 5y ago
  Getting any type of car is a type of luxury and likely does not make any economic sense for most drivers today: taxi, rentals, airplanes, trains and other public transport can probably take average family through 10 years for the average price of the new car they are buying (I am ignoring the fact that most people are buying used, but that argument does not help the relatively new EV industry). It only makes economic sense for those that need a car for their work (taxis, delivery, lots of client meetings...), and that's where electric cars already have an economic advantage. So the "economic sense" is not the reason people buy cars in the first place, but instead convenience it affords them. I'd love to get an electric car for my city driving, but considering what car my family can fit into, it'd have to be something like an Ioniq 5 at 50K€. And if it was available at that price range 2 years ago when I was getting a new car (still significantly cheaper than Ioniq5), maybe I just would have bit the bullet. But I had to perhaps spend 100K€ on a Tesla or 80k€ on a Jaguar I-pace just to get a comparatively sized car back then. Renting a car for those one or two trips can be pretty expensive, especially in the travel season, when cars are mostly gone quickly (on top of a cost of an electric car vs. a petrol car). You also have to plan ahead and those impromptu long-weekend trips are now suddenly much harder. But anyway, we WILL get there. The fact that there are enough people willing to live through the inconveniences caused by EVs today means that infrastructure will get on par, and then none of us will have an excuse. But pretending that these are not inconveniences in a tool most people get for their convenience does not help anyone.

You don't need to be against EVs to be concerned about range. You can be pro EV and still be anxious that current ones won't fit your life situation. Let's not polarize unnecessarily.

speedgoose 5y ago

True, but usually people asking for a lot of range are looking for arguments to dismiss EVs. It's very few people who actually need more range than what is offered today, assuming you have a charging network developed where you drive.

zemvpferreira 5y ago
In my experience this dismissive attitude you're talking about used to be much more common 5 years ago than it is now. Many people today want to go electric but are concerned about their own use case, and their expressions of range anxiety are personal concerns, not points of virtue. The way to ease them into it is to be a good role model, not to debated them on absolute terms. The paradigm has changed for the better.

cycomanic 5y ago

The problem is that the range arguments are always brought as if they were a general use case. Most people will have maybe 1 or 2 trips a year that go over 500km in one trip. They still insist on buying a car for being able to do that trip, instead of buying a car for their general use case and renting a car for that one trip (if really necessary). Similar arguments for being able to transport 7 people, pulling a trailer, going off road etc.. People hardly ever need this they still buy cars because of this capability. Even disregarding electric cars, it doesn't make any economic sense.

necovek 5y ago
Getting any type of car is a type of luxury and likely does not make any economic sense for most drivers today: taxi, rentals, airplanes, trains and other public transport can probably take average family through 10 years for the average price of the new car they are buying (I am ignoring the fact that most people are buying used, but that argument does not help the relatively new EV industry). It only makes economic sense for those that need a car for their work (taxis, delivery, lots of client meetings...), and that's where electric cars already have an economic advantage. So the "economic sense" is not the reason people buy cars in the first place, but instead convenience it affords them. I'd love to get an electric car for my city driving, but considering what car my family can fit into, it'd have to be something like an Ioniq 5 at 50K€. And if it was available at that price range 2 years ago when I was getting a new car (still significantly cheaper than Ioniq5), maybe I just would have bit the bullet. But I had to perhaps spend 100K€ on a Tesla or 80k€ on a Jaguar I-pace just to get a comparatively sized car back then. Renting a car for those one or two trips can be pretty expensive, especially in the travel season, when cars are mostly gone quickly (on top of a cost of an electric car vs. a petrol car). You also have to plan ahead and those impromptu long-weekend trips are now suddenly much harder. But anyway, we WILL get there. The fact that there are enough people willing to live through the inconveniences caused by EVs today means that infrastructure will get on par, and then none of us will have an excuse. But pretending that these are not inconveniences in a tool most people get for their convenience does not help anyone.