5 ms·

The charging infrastructure, or lack thereof, is a huge obstacle. The US is a big place and an EV is still a risky bet if you ever have to drive long distances

The charging infrastructure, or lack thereof, is a huge obstacle. The US is a big place and an EV is still a risky bet if you ever have to drive long distances. Available charging networks are still kind of unpredictable. Getting advertised charging rates is rare. Most people I know want an EV, but they’re keenly aware that the next generation or two of EVs and charging networks will be substantially better. Waiting a few iterations is not a bad strategy.

dont__panic 5y ago
Personally a hard blocker for me is the charging networks -- I really, really, really do not want to invest in a car whose charging network languishes while I'm still relying on that car day-to-day. Tesla's network should be forced open to all EVs and a common charger standard should be mandated going forward. Until that happens I'm not touching EVs with a ten foot pole.
- rnk 5y ago
  Why should tesla be forced to open their network? They had the foresight to build it out ahead of time. I think it would be better to incentivize other networks to do better and compete with tesla.
  - dont__panic 5y ago
    Why should gas stations be forced to open their networks? Why should AT&T home internet let you sign up for Comcast or Google Fiber? Why should Verizon let you take a device you bought through them to T-Mobile? Why should Edge let you download Firefox? I'll give you a few options: consumer choice, freedom, interoperability, less physical waste?
  - bdcravens 5y ago
    Doesn't matter; Tesla has already said they would, and started the pilot program a couple of months ago. (not in the US yet however) https://www.tesla.com/support/non-tesla-supercharging https://www.tesla.com/support/non-tesla-supercharging But to answer your bigger point: others networks aren't incentivized yet to push harder to compete. The demand just isn't there yet. For EVs to be successful in the US, there needs to be more than one successful company. This is a goal that is bigger than capitalism, and sometimes you have to work at odds with capitalism to accomplish those kind of goals.
    - rnk 5y ago
      There's already more than one successful company, see vw & ea. Tesla only opened their network in europe where they have the same plug experimentally. In the us it looked like they might open their network by putting dual charging plugs at superchargers if they were getting money from the bbb, but that money seems remote now. If telsa started building ccs charging networks in the us that were about the same as tesla superchargers except with that plug, they'd crush the competition because they charge market rates for their electricity and fix them when they are broken - this is beyond the capability the vw-owned electrify america.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  There already is a standard charger in the US, CCS. All fast chargers installed in the last few years have been either Tesla or CCS. All non-Tesla models introduces in the last several years have had CCS faster chargers. Early on Nissan was promoting CHADEMO but that plug type is now deprecated in the US. There are still also J772 level 2 chargers for low speed charging such as at your house, but all vehicles support that as well. It is true that other markets have their own standards, China and Japan for instance but the number of cars moved between markets is very small. In Europe, Tesla has switched to CCS. In the US, Tesla has committed to letting CCS cars charge on its network. The CCS network in the US is growing quickly and is in the same general size as Teslas. Thing are coming together.
  - muzika 5y ago
    Except that CCS in US is not the same things as CCS in Europe.
eternityforest 5y ago
That's one thing I really don't like about this country. We don't really push ahead aggressively with tech, it takes decades. When we know something could be done, but currently isn't practical, instead of saying "Nope, we are building this charging network and we will have better batteries within 5 years", we say "Maybe someday, but right now we need gas". We judge technology based on whether it works and is economical right now, even when there's a clear road map to making it work. People still talk about whether the electric grid can handle the electric cars, and how windmills and solar are forcing coal offline, like as if we don't know how to upgrade things and build natural gas plants. For a given individual, waiting a few generations makes sense, but it would be cool if big companies were just a little less obsessed with slow iterative development and rollout of tech that we pretty much already know how to do. Everyone says batteries aren't sustainable and Lithium mining is bad, but the point isn't to make a billion lithium cars, everything now is just a prototype. Building these missing technologies like energy storage should be as big of a deal as the moon landing was. The kind of "Make it work even if it costs 100 billion because our future depends on it" thing we just don't see anymore.
- rnk 5y ago
  The grid has held up just fine. We are hardly even taking advantage of the easy things like charging cars mostly at night when there is excess power. Ignore texas' failing network, that's their own fault for not requiring cold and hot weather power requirements.
  - LinuxBender 5y ago
    I believe the concern is about growth. If a majority of people switched to EV the grid would be overwhelmed. [1] It is estimated that by 2030 about $125 billion would be required to upgrade the power infrastructure. That is based on just one study there are probably better ones. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/13/electric-vehicles-grid-upgrade/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/13/electric-...
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
treesknees 5y ago
I have family in a very rural area, we drive one-way 500+ miles, ~9 hours, several times a year to see them. In my ICE SUV I have to stop twice for gas assuming I start with a full tank. Trying to do that trip in an electric vehicle, in order to account for charging stations, would add 4 stops and around 2 hours for charging. Tesla's trips webpage also estimates that I'd save...$13 in fuel compared to gas. The cars are more expensive, the number of required stopping locations is increased while severely restricted, and overall I don't save much money charging compared to buying gasoline. Overall it doesn't add up, and I think a lot of Americans see it this way as well. In the US the automobile has historically been marketed and used as a tool of freedom, independence, mobility, etc. It's hard to market something as a provider of mobility when in my mind I see an orange extension cord tethering it to the cities and metro areas.
- rnk 5y ago
  Electric cars have their limits, just like a small toyota or honda car won't be right to pull your big boat of travel trailer. You need to find charging along your route, and you don't want to arrive with only a tiny range left and be stuck with slow charging. But that very rarely happens to me today driving all around the northwest to ski, go to canada (precovid at least ;-)), Banff, Oregon, Idaho, you can just drive there. I'm curious about the route, because that's not that far. The first gen lucid air cars have a 500 mile range. That max range vehicle costs about 160k at the moment. Many cheaper cars are 300+ miles today, even the rivian truck has an epa range of 314 miles (and this is far from the best long range car). Tesla has 400 mile range cars today (latest model s at 396 miles), model 3 is 350 miles w awd. Tesla superchargers make charging easy and fast generally for the entire area, with that distance and a tesla or other current gen car, and allowing 1 or 2 20 minute charging stops it should be easy to go that distance. I'd consider trying one of the websites that let you pick a route and input your car and they suggest distance and charging locations needed (e.g., https://aBetterRoutePlanner.com https://aBetterRoutePlanner.com). With tesla you usually pay around the price of electricity; unfortuatenly electrify america charges double or triple local power prices. It's not that hard for me to go anywhere I want in my 7 year old model s.
  - 5y ago

dont__panic 5y ago

Personally a hard blocker for me is the charging networks -- I really, really, really do not want to invest in a car whose charging network languishes while I'm still relying on that car day-to-day. Tesla's network should be forced open to all EVs and a common charger standard should be mandated going forward. Until that happens I'm not touching EVs with a ten foot pole.

rnk 5y ago
Why should tesla be forced to open their network? They had the foresight to build it out ahead of time. I think it would be better to incentivize other networks to do better and compete with tesla.
- dont__panic 5y ago
  Why should gas stations be forced to open their networks? Why should AT&T home internet let you sign up for Comcast or Google Fiber? Why should Verizon let you take a device you bought through them to T-Mobile? Why should Edge let you download Firefox? I'll give you a few options: consumer choice, freedom, interoperability, less physical waste?
- bdcravens 5y ago
  Doesn't matter; Tesla has already said they would, and started the pilot program a couple of months ago. (not in the US yet however) https://www.tesla.com/support/non-tesla-supercharging https://www.tesla.com/support/non-tesla-supercharging But to answer your bigger point: others networks aren't incentivized yet to push harder to compete. The demand just isn't there yet. For EVs to be successful in the US, there needs to be more than one successful company. This is a goal that is bigger than capitalism, and sometimes you have to work at odds with capitalism to accomplish those kind of goals.
  - rnk 5y ago
    There's already more than one successful company, see vw & ea. Tesla only opened their network in europe where they have the same plug experimentally. In the us it looked like they might open their network by putting dual charging plugs at superchargers if they were getting money from the bbb, but that money seems remote now. If telsa started building ccs charging networks in the us that were about the same as tesla superchargers except with that plug, they'd crush the competition because they charge market rates for their electricity and fix them when they are broken - this is beyond the capability the vw-owned electrify america.
Tagbert 5y ago
There already is a standard charger in the US, CCS. All fast chargers installed in the last few years have been either Tesla or CCS. All non-Tesla models introduces in the last several years have had CCS faster chargers. Early on Nissan was promoting CHADEMO but that plug type is now deprecated in the US. There are still also J772 level 2 chargers for low speed charging such as at your house, but all vehicles support that as well. It is true that other markets have their own standards, China and Japan for instance but the number of cars moved between markets is very small. In Europe, Tesla has switched to CCS. In the US, Tesla has committed to letting CCS cars charge on its network. The CCS network in the US is growing quickly and is in the same general size as Teslas. Thing are coming together.
- muzika 5y ago
  Except that CCS in US is not the same things as CCS in Europe.

eternityforest 5y ago

That's one thing I really don't like about this country. We don't really push ahead aggressively with tech, it takes decades. When we know something could be done, but currently isn't practical, instead of saying "Nope, we are building this charging network and we will have better batteries within 5 years", we say "Maybe someday, but right now we need gas". We judge technology based on whether it works and is economical right now, even when there's a clear road map to making it work. People still talk about whether the electric grid can handle the electric cars, and how windmills and solar are forcing coal offline, like as if we don't know how to upgrade things and build natural gas plants. For a given individual, waiting a few generations makes sense, but it would be cool if big companies were just a little less obsessed with slow iterative development and rollout of tech that we pretty much already know how to do. Everyone says batteries aren't sustainable and Lithium mining is bad, but the point isn't to make a billion lithium cars, everything now is just a prototype. Building these missing technologies like energy storage should be as big of a deal as the moon landing was. The kind of "Make it work even if it costs 100 billion because our future depends on it" thing we just don't see anymore.

rnk 5y ago
The grid has held up just fine. We are hardly even taking advantage of the easy things like charging cars mostly at night when there is excess power. Ignore texas' failing network, that's their own fault for not requiring cold and hot weather power requirements.
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  I believe the concern is about growth. If a majority of people switched to EV the grid would be overwhelmed. [1] It is estimated that by 2030 about $125 billion would be required to upgrade the power infrastructure. That is based on just one study there are probably better ones. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/13/electric-vehicles-grid-upgrade/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/13/electric-...
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago

treesknees 5y ago

I have family in a very rural area, we drive one-way 500+ miles, ~9 hours, several times a year to see them. In my ICE SUV I have to stop twice for gas assuming I start with a full tank. Trying to do that trip in an electric vehicle, in order to account for charging stations, would add 4 stops and around 2 hours for charging. Tesla's trips webpage also estimates that I'd save...$13 in fuel compared to gas. The cars are more expensive, the number of required stopping locations is increased while severely restricted, and overall I don't save much money charging compared to buying gasoline. Overall it doesn't add up, and I think a lot of Americans see it this way as well. In the US the automobile has historically been marketed and used as a tool of freedom, independence, mobility, etc. It's hard to market something as a provider of mobility when in my mind I see an orange extension cord tethering it to the cities and metro areas.

rnk 5y ago
Electric cars have their limits, just like a small toyota or honda car won't be right to pull your big boat of travel trailer. You need to find charging along your route, and you don't want to arrive with only a tiny range left and be stuck with slow charging. But that very rarely happens to me today driving all around the northwest to ski, go to canada (precovid at least ;-)), Banff, Oregon, Idaho, you can just drive there. I'm curious about the route, because that's not that far. The first gen lucid air cars have a 500 mile range. That max range vehicle costs about 160k at the moment. Many cheaper cars are 300+ miles today, even the rivian truck has an epa range of 314 miles (and this is far from the best long range car). Tesla has 400 mile range cars today (latest model s at 396 miles), model 3 is 350 miles w awd. Tesla superchargers make charging easy and fast generally for the entire area, with that distance and a tesla or other current gen car, and allowing 1 or 2 20 minute charging stops it should be easy to go that distance. I'd consider trying one of the websites that let you pick a route and input your car and they suggest distance and charging locations needed (e.g., https://aBetterRoutePlanner.com https://aBetterRoutePlanner.com). With tesla you usually pay around the price of electricity; unfortuatenly electrify america charges double or triple local power prices. It's not that hard for me to go anywhere I want in my 7 year old model s.
- 5y ago