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EV’s currently make the most sense for people who own a single family home or otherwise live in a community with readily available near-home chargers, where EV’

EV’s currently make the most sense for people who own a single family home or otherwise live in a community with readily available near-home chargers, where EV’s are on average more convenient than gas cars. People who rely on street parking and apartment dwellers would likely find EV’s more inconvenient than a gas car. We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. Another factor that could be at play is that all the non-Tesla EV makers have recently announced they will switch their chargers to NACS, but this will take a couple of years to roll out, so it’s not a great time to buy a non-Tesla since it already has legacy charging hardware.

atestu 3y ago
I'm in that first group and I don't see how it makes the most sense. They are not more convenient. I can "charge" my gas car in 2 minutes basically anywhere in the country. I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. And they're all much more expensive than a nice 5 year old gas car.
- arbitrary_name 3y ago
  >It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation Uhhhh, that's crazy to me. I don't know anyone who drives that far for a holiday, especially with kids.
  - avgDev 3y ago
    During COVID, I drove 24 hours to Florida. Longest stint of driving was 16 hours.
  - s0rce 3y ago
    I do that, can be fun, there is so much to see on the way. Drove last Christmas from Riverside county to Bisbee, AZ and back via San Diego.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    You apparently don't live in the US, or at least not in the midwest. I know a lot of people who do trips longer than that. Many Canadians out in the middle do similar trips as well (well there are not many Canadians living in that part of the country, but the ones who are there do it)
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    With family 750 miles away and a dog that doesn’t fit into a pax cabin carrier, we do it at least once and sometimes twice a year. It’s a two pit-stop trip now that the kids are older; it used to be 4-5 stops when they were little.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  [flagged]
- bragr 3y ago
  > I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. With fast charging you typically only stop for 15-25 minutes, the infotainment or app does the planning for you, and the frequency you'll have to stop at matches the natural frequency people typically need to stop anyways by design.
  - serial_dev 3y ago
    "It only takes 5x longer to charge at some specific charging stations that may or may not be conveniently located for your trip, I don't know what's the big deal" I can see how EV cars are good options for people who live in the city and only go grocery shopping, but for people who have family scattered around the country / continent with young children or babies, it sounds extremely inconvenient.
    - s3p 3y ago
      Sigh. As someone who just made two different 27 hour drives across the country in the last 6 months, I can tell you this is completely fine. Driving on major US highways you will always be able to plan it out and find one. Plus, I took longer breaks of that size anyway because every 2-3 hours I needed to get out of the car and stretch. Having forced time to get out of the car for a longer trip would have been beneficial for me.
      - thegrim33 3y ago
        And what if I want to drive on roads that are not one of the handful of major highways? And what if, unlike you, I can manage to sit down for more than 2-3 hours? The mental gymnastics are so weird to read. It's like .. for a horrible analogy, you're trying to defend a power drill which no longer drills, by saying "well hey, it works just fine, as long as you want to use it as a hammer and not as a drill, and hey, having to rotate it manually to actually screw something in is actually a good thing because it's good exercise".
    - LeafItAlone 3y ago
      That’s disingenuous because while pumping gas you remain with the vehicle (because it’s quick). With charging an EV, you charge while going inside to use the bathroom and get food. Provided there are available chargers and it is as convenient of an experience as a Tesla charging in a Supercharger, it’s very quick to set up. I drive a lot by myself and can see the convenience of popping it on a charger while running in. I am in and out very quickly, but even that short time can add reasonable distance. With small children it takes longer and you get more of a charge.
- dzader 3y ago
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- lucaspm98 3y ago
  I've charged my EV at a public charging station less than 5 times in the past year. Instead of a 5 minute stop once a week at a gas station it's 5 seconds every time I get home to plug it in. Any trip within a 3 hour drive is possible round trip on a single charge. Any trip within a 5 hour drive is possible with no stops and destination charging, actually saving a stop. Any trip over a 5 hour drive generally takes less time and costs less to fly (I'm sure with many edge cases around rural destinations). Even on long road trips, charging from 20-80% takes 15-20 minutes and most drivers will at least need a bathroom break every 3-4 hours. New Tesla Model 3 prices are comparable to entry level sedans like the Civic and Camry. Used Chevy Bolt's are abundant at <$20k with much less ongoing maintenance costs versus used gas cars. There aren't yet affordable large SUVs and trucks if those are your only vehicles in consideration.
  - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
    >New Tesla Model 3 prices are comparable [in cost] to entry level sedans like the Civic and Camry. I was with you until this. This is provably false just by going to the tesla and toyota websites.
    - megaman821 3y ago
      With the rebate a Model 3 is within a couple grand of Camry similarly equipped.
    - zaroth 3y ago
      Well… 2024 Camry XLE with Nav and Cold Weather - $36,965 Tesla Model 3 - $38,990 - without any credits or subsidies. But worth noting two things - first, there may be significant State tax credits for buying a Model 3, and the base Model 3 currently doesn’t qualify for the $7,500 Federal subsidy, only as of 12/31/23. In other words, last week the base Model 3 was at least $7,500 cheaper than $38,990.
      - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
        Why are you not comparing base prices? This is extremely misleading as you're misrepresenting the Camry and including the rebate (even though you say you're not). According to their US websites, the 2024 Camry starts at $26,420. The Model 3 starts at $46500 (not including the $7500 rebate).
- calamari4065 3y ago
  It's more convenient when you can charge at home overnight when you aren't using the car
- natch 3y ago
  I don’t think I’ve ever done a 45 minute charge stop in many trips between California and faraway places including Colorado, Montana, and Texas. These are not day trips. People read stuff and just believe it without questioning. Most of my charge stops are much quicker than what you think. 10 minutes usually. Sometimes 20 or more ahead of a long desert stretch where gas stations are also few and far between, but usually 10. The most priceless thing though is safety for your family. I read about accidents people had in their nice 5 year old gas cars, and it’s just sad to me that they didn’t see the options for what they were, and could have easily afforded a much safer car, but instead based their choices on bad information about supposed long charging times and supposed long lines at chargers.
  - s3p 3y ago
    Agreed :) I've driven a Wrangler since I got my drivers license (nearly a decade ago) and I am just waiting for the day I am side swiped or my car rolls over due to some unforseen accident. Whether it's my fault or not. I love my car but the safety ratings are abysmal and I for one look forward to the day I have a savings high enough to afford a safe EV.
    - ttt3ts 3y ago
      Man, I miss my TJ. I now have a family car with excellent crash ratings. Take the top off and enjoy it while you can :P
  - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
    I'm sorry I was with you until you started talking about safety? Gas cars are not inherently unsafe. Yes, a lot of EVs have very high crash safety ratings but I'd be willing to bet a volvo is safer overall even if tesla has managed to game some scores. I will admit that evs typically have a much lower rollover risk, but frankly stability control will not let you drive a car beyond it's limits. Even a hulking SUV is pretty hard to rollover these days.
    - natch 3y ago
      I'm sure Volvos are safe (definitely far behind Tesla though, I've owned multiple of both) but now knowing that Volvo is a China owned company, I would never buy one for that reason, nothing to do with safety.
- syntheticnature 3y ago
  Tangent: As someone driving a gas car, I would like to know how your car takes only 2 minutes to refuel. 5 minutes? Certainly, if the station is not getting heavy traffic (which seems to slow the pumps), and on a long trip it's quite likely it will a busy interstate-side station that might get to ten minutes due to slow-flowing gas. Even so, as we both know, it's unlikely to reach 15 minutes as discussed else-thread, and while I do need breaks on a trip, 15 minutes is about the maximum I want to take unless I'm eating.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
    Maybe it depends on what you drive? My car takes about 6-7 gallons when empty, but I see tons of other cars taking huge amounts.
    - happyopossum 3y ago
      Maybe it's a North America thing, but I can't think of a (purely ICE) car here that has anything smaller than a ~13 gallon tank... Maybe there are a few with 10-12 gallon ones, but they'd be outliers for sure. For a typical family-hauler that's be used on road trips like a Honda Odyssey, 16-20 gallons is totally common.
      - 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
        Huh, I'm in the SF bay area with a prius (advertised as a 11.9 gallon tank, but due to one thing or another, it's never more than 7 even when beeping at me to refill. But I do agree that pretty much every time I fill up and look at what the previous car used, it's some crazy high number in comparison.
- outlace 3y ago
  I would guess most single family home owners have two or more cars. This is a total guess based on my own situation and those of people I know who own EV’s but most EV owners with a single family home will also own a gas car. So an EV is more convenient than a gas car for daily commutes because you never have to go to a gas station. For the rare times you go on a long trip, you just take the gas car or you put up with having a longer trip in the EV.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > I would guess most single family home owners have two or more cars. I was curious so looked this up. Not sure how good these stats are, but here's what I found at https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-statistics/ https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-st... The average US household owns 2.28 vehicles. 35% of US households own three or more cars. I found that interesting because almost no household that I personally know owns more than one vehicle (regardless of income level), so there may be large geographical variances here. Also interesting is that the total number of registered vehicles in the US declined by over 25 million between 2012 and 2019. There is hope!
    - trgn 3y ago
      > Also interesting is that the total number of registered vehicles in the US declined by over 25 million between 2012 and 2019. There is hope! Really? Awesome! The future is bright indeed. EVs are objectively better than ICE-cars, they don't nearly trash up the city as much as ICE-cars (less noisy, less stinky, no gas stations, nothing trashes up a neighborhood than a gas station), but a lot feel like they have made strides in being safer for pedestrians, cyclists, ... Hard to square with the overall increased aggressive vibe in overall traffic, more antisocial driving, larger cars, meaner looking cars, ...
    - burntsushi 3y ago
      Out here in the suburbs of Massachusetts, it is very common to see 3 (or more) cars in the driveways of single family homes. In my experience, it's usually because some of the cars belong to one or more of the kids who live there. And each parent usually has their own car. Growing up, getting a car was a watershed moment for me personally. It marked a transition into a new type of independence from my parents, and also the primary motivation for getting my first job. It was liberating. Out here, it's not feasible to get anywhere, really, without a car. Before getting my own car, if I needed to get somewhere, I had to convince some adult (usually my parents or a friend's parents) to take us there.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  I'd think a bit of inconvenience would be worth it for a better future for your children as well as all the world's children, but I've been around long enough to come to the understanding that that's just wishful thinking on my part; truly you are just one incredibly minuscule drop in the ocean of carbon emissions that will doom us. I don't envy young children the future world they're going to inherit.
  - everdrive 3y ago
    Don't worry, at some point those children will grow up. They'll cease to be innocent victims, and will be forced into the same moral compromises that all adults are forced into. My only hope is that some of them will realize how silly their youthful generational blame had been.
    - hotpotamus 3y ago
      I assume all of us heard something to the effect of "you'll understand it when you grow up". Fair enough, but I guess I never really grew up because the older I get, the less I understand any of this really. As far as I can tell, everyone is just trying to "get their kicks in before the whole shithouse goes up in flames" to quote Jim Morrison. I wish I could do that, but it seems to be beyond me not to worry about the future.
      - everdrive 3y ago
        Contrary to stereotype, I don't think most adults are _intentionally_ passing the buck to the next generation so much as they are _incidentally_ passing the buck to the next generation. They don't know how to live without producing carbon & other waste, and there are practical expenses they need to answer for. (bills, family members, putting food on the table) Most adults don't have many skills beyond using the infrastructure which is laid out for them. (roads, cars, supermarkets, public schools, available careers, etc.) And crucially, my point is that today's kids will simply not be in a better situation. They'll have the tools of society at their hands, and in general, not much more. I don't love child labor, but I genuinely have no practical way to know if my clothing was produced via child labor. (I buy 99% of my clothing used, so hopefully that's helping) I don't have any practical way to know if my plastic recycling isn't getting dumped in the ocean in Turkey. I'd like to use less carbon, but my wife isn't willing to live with the heat set any lower than 62 F. Etc. The impacts which I can make are pretty small. Populations are rising, and technology is not the panacea some people think. Technology can improve carbon output, but everyone needs to eat and live. This will always be deleterious to the environment, and the "victim" generation will eventually grow up to be the victimizers as they have to run governments and companies. They'll be faced with compromises they can't avoid, no matter their politics.
- pentae 3y ago
  I feel the same way and after speaking with many EV people i've realised the main benefit is how cheap they are to run. This comes down to the increase in efficiency compared to an ICE - ~80% of the battery energy finds its way to the wheels on EV's, vs ~30% on an ICE. If you live somewhere where electric costs are very low then a 0 to full charge your EV costs about $10. (Someone please correct me if i'm off on this one) Depending on your mileage, by saving $3k-$4k a year on gas theres certainly a case to be made for an EV being a more sensible financial decision in the long term especially given government tax incentives One of the biggest reason for the massive disparity in efficiency on EV's is due to regenerative braking (16-25%). So what's interesting is when you compare an EV to a Hybrid ICE vehicle then the efficiency disparity becomes a lot less and you still have the benefit of being able to take long trips and not needing a home charger. Anyone thats driven a Hybrid Toyota will tell you that fuel consumption is dramatically less, in my real world scenarios I use about 2.5x less gas in something like a Toyota Corolla Cross compared to my not overly thirsty ICE BMW. Another benefit to Hybrids is they only require a ~1kWh battery instead of needing a huge 60-70kWh battery like an EV. So you could create 60 or 70 hybrid vehicles for the same amount of lithium mining as one EV. One has to wonder why the governments aren't just pushing everyone into Hybrids instead of EV's? If a young person was asking me to recommend a car and they didn't have a home charger I wouldn't hesitate to recommend something like a new Toyota HEV / Honda e:hev - they are basically an EV with an on-board Atkinson engine as a powerplant.
  - recursive 3y ago
    > i've realised the main benefit is how cheap they are to run Depends what you value. For me, that's a nice to have. Greater benefits are: never go to a gas station, no oil changes, no fumes, more fun to drive.
    - conk 3y ago
      IMO the lack of fumes/exhaust is my favorite part of owning an EV. Sure there are some downsides with EVs (more expensive to buy, less range, lack of public charging infrastructure) but those don’t impact me and I’d gladly take the negatives for a car that doesn’t smell every time I park it in my garage.
- kaiken1987 3y ago
  Realistically having done road trips, it's stopping every 3 hours and it's not 45 minutes, it's basically the amount of time it takes to get 2 kids out of the car, in to use the restrooms, and back into the car.
  - themaninthedark 3y ago
    That depends; When I had toddlers, like the parent, I would often drive at night while they were asleep. Now they are older and we travel more in the day but it is around 4 hours and have to schedule a meal.
- huytersd 3y ago
  I’m in the first group with a 30 minute commute every morning. With the solar panels on my roof, transportation is essentially free for me.
- tshaddox 3y ago
  It all depends on how much importance you put on those few road trips per year. With an EV those few road trips definitely take slightly more time, but the rest of the year (assuming you can charge at home or work) you never go to a gas station or charging station and almost certainly save vastly more time over the entire year.
- sigspec 3y ago
  It's always the "vacation that I take once a year" that people use as an excuse, meanwhile families are filling two vehicles twice a week. Get real and get new material.
  - themaninthedark 3y ago
    I recently changed job; I used to fill my car every week now every other week. (60 miles roundtrip to 30 miles roundtrip) I also have some times where I have to drive 10.2 hours(730 miles one way) almost non-stop. When I have to do something like that, I want to drive. Not stop and wait. The Tesla trip planner with the Model 3 Long Range edition for that drive show it will take 13h for the same drive so about 28% longer with 4 stops @ 30min each. Realize that people have different use cases.
    - lanstin 3y ago
      It would be cool, if climate change were a convenient truth, rather than slightly inconvenient.
      - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
        it would be cool if people felt like the environmental benefits were enough and didn't have to muddy the waters with made up other factoids. if you want to buy an EV for the environment, great, more power to you, but stop trying to convince people that it's reasonable to sit and wait 45 minutes every few hours. You may find that acceptable but many of us don't.
        lanstin 3y ago
        I wouldn't find it acceptible but also I don't do that. Like people said more like 15 minutes. There's some art to it - don't charge to full during the trip, and to reduce your trip time, reduce your velocity to lower than max safe speed. I do find it would be reasonable to pass laws to force you to switch to an EV even if it causes you some inconvenience, so that the likely future of my children and their peers is better.
- AYBABTME 3y ago
  I drove from Reno to LA recently in a Model Y and my charging stops all lined up with bathroom breaks and food. I never actually waited for the charging process itself. It doesn't take 45min and it's not like I have any interest in sitting for more than 3h-4h straight without stopping at all. I've done plenty of long distance trips with my kids and the Tesla and, really, charging is a non-issue. The only actual negative I have is that chargers aren't as present in remote locations and if it's not a Tesla charger, it's not real. Also when towing a camper uphill to Yosemite, it was stressful but we made it on top.
  - mythhabit 3y ago
    As more and more people buy EVs, it's not uncommon that the charging infrastructure is not expanding at the same rate. Many EV owners I know, have all experienced to wait in a line for 15 min charge on a trip. Those that have had a Tesla for 7-8 years all agree that it is a relatively new thing. The infrastructure will improve and will expand to keep up, but it is one of the teething issues that is slowing mass adoption.
  - NegativeK 3y ago
    Different strokes, different folks. I prefer stopping every four hours, and making the stop take less than 10 minutes. Having my EV is very much worth it overall, but it _is_ annoying to add more than an hour for every eight hours of driving.
    - AYBABTME 3y ago
      I'm in good shape and healthy and if I sit and drive for more than 3h straight, my body is quite unhappy with it. It's possible but not a good idea.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- organsnyder 3y ago
  I just did a road trip with my family (four kids aged 6-13). If we had an EV, I would have simply topped off the battery any time we stopped for a bathroom break (I get excited whenever we're able to pass a service plaza without someone needing to go).
- christiangenco 3y ago
  My wife and I own a single family home, a gas-powered car (Toyota Rav4), and an electric car (a standard range Tesla model 3). The electric car is much more convenient for us for city driving and the gas-powered car is much more convenient for road trips. Refuelling the Rav4 is an errand that takes time, planning, and mental energy. For my wife it's also a low-level danger: women find gas stations spooky, apparently. Refuelling the Tesla is automatic and effortless. After you park at home, if the charge is <40% then plug it in. The next time you need to drive somewhere it will be full. It took me an afternoon hanging out with my electrician cousin and about $400 in parts from Amazon to build our own at-home electric refuelling station. Road trips with the Tesla, however, are currently impractical: we end up adding another ~30% to the drive time. With only a ~220 mile range the Tesla needs to stop about every 150 miles for 40 minutes which is brutal. Range anxiety also becomes a much bigger factor driving through more rural areas and your route choices weigh supercharger locations above everything else. We've got used to the self driving convenience of the Tesla but the Comma[1] on our Rav4 is just about as good for highway driving. 1. https://comma.ai/ https://comma.ai/
  - hiddencost 3y ago
    I hope you're really good to that cousin. It's damn hard to get time with skilled contractors.
  - tannedNerd 3y ago
    I have a SR+ and have done about a dozen trips from Lake Tahoe to San Diego and back about 10 hours in a ICE car and 11.25 in my SR+ You really should never be charging past 70% (the exception being before climbing in sub freezing temps in the sierras) on road trips and instead plan to make much shorter charging stops more often. I’m normally out of a supercharger in 15-20 min if I precondition the battery before charging and it’s about the time my wife needs to stop for a pee break anyways so it’s kinda great to stop. Use the restroom and be ready to go again. If you are charging 45 min you are doing it so wrong.
    - Solvency 3y ago
      This entire idea just underscores the inane mental burden for the average person just to drive their car long distance.
- conductr 3y ago
  I’m in that first group too and I bought a new car in 2023. I went ICE ultimately because I didn’t see many electric options I would want. Cars are part fashion so I wanted to “like it”. But I also mostly car about reliability and longevity as I usually buy new but keep for 10-12 years and don’t want the inconvenience of maintenance beyond the routine stuff. In the past, this put me in a Honda/Toyota but this time I was open and even wanted something more luxurious/expensive. Most EVs are just unproven in my opinion. Just because it says Mercedes, nice test drive I don’t want to be their EV Guinea pig in terms of long term ownership. Companies like Rivian, cool but way too new for me to even blink an eye at. This basically left me with Tesla as an only option. If you do any research at all you’ll hear/see how hit and miss their build quality is. Seems worse on certain models, but ultimately I also know too much about Musk’s management style and it does the opposite of instilling confidence in the product. I also happen to just not “like” the interior/dash setup. So, I just felt like I was sacrificing /risking too much with EV. The other issue in some cases, the EV has been announced with a release date and accepting deposits but I couldn’t actually purchase one like I needed/wanted too; Too much friction in 2023. I ended up in a Lexus. Basically the luxury Toyota. So i essentially kept my purchasing behavior unchanged due to not finding any compelling EV, but i kicked some EV tires.
  - aftbit 3y ago
    Don't get a Mercedes if you want reliable. Spoken from second hand experience at least. Toyota and Lexus are hard to beat.
    - conductr 3y ago
      Yeah I have that long standing impression too. Heard a lot of bad stories over the years on all the German manufacturers except maybe VW. It was something I considered sacrificing on as it seems the be a luxury tax of sorts. They do make more luxurious vehicles than Lexus, but it’s pretty marginal IMO after consideration even on their ICE vehicles. I’d probably have gone with a loaded GM/Ford over a German vehicle. Domestic manufactures also have a dealership problem though. They are the sleeziest of them all and I just really get turned off by it. Also, I didn’t need a tank in the Yukon but also didn’t like their smaller SUVs as much.
- r0m4n0 3y ago
  Based upon the amount of comments here this must be a controversial comment but I can’t imagine how you do this. With one toddler, she can barely make a 1 hour trip let alone 11 hours. I could use an electric vehicle with a 90 mile range for that trip because that’s about how often I would need to stop. Props to you for keeping 2 toddlers in the car for 11 hours
  - GiorgioG 3y ago
    Toughen up your toddlers ;) A decade ago we moved from one state (NY) to another (NC) with an 18 month old and a 6 year old. We did the 650 mile trip at night in way longer than 10.5 hours it should have taken due to horrible weather, traffic, etc...but we didn't stop for anything other than gas and one or two coffee breaks.
- pwthornton 3y ago
  EV stops have a big advantage in that they force you to get out and move around a bit. Sitting in a car all day is bad for you. Taking a break every few hours is good. Walking around during that break is ideal. You don't want to give yourself a blood clot on a family vacation.
  - tines 3y ago
    Is there a name for when someone bends over backwards to paint a disadvantage as an advantage? I guess it's the same as the old "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" trope.
    - pwthornton 3y ago
      It's the opposite. Supposed advantages often get you into trouble. Constraints, in this case not being able to drive for eight-straight hours, is a good thing. Constraints are often a good thing because they introduce just enough friction to prevent us from harming ourselves.
      - tines 3y ago
        You can make this case for anything though, as with every advantage comes a downside. "Horse-drawn carriages have a big advantage in that they force you to not go as fast, and so they make crashes less fatal. Crashing a car is bad for you. Going slow is good." This isn't a real argument though; how fast I go is my business, and how long I drive is my business as well. If I have two people in a car, we can trade off and solve your "driving too long" problem in a way that doesn't compromise ability. Nobody is going to buy this rationale. An EV can do less than a gas car (in this area), and it's just worse. From your argument, it follows that we should push auto manufacturers to make the gas tanks of non-EVs smaller, so that it's impossible to drive for longer than 8 hours on one tank of gas. This is just a terrible position, it doesn't even merit being argued against. In fact, making up rationalizations like this is so much worse than doing nothing, because it saps the incentive to improve things. If we delude ourselves into thinking that a car that can do less is better, then we'll never make it better, fewer people will purchase them, and we'll blame everyone else for not buying into our delusion.
- scarby2 3y ago
  >I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. How often do you do this? Once, maybe twice a year? With my current commute i have to go out of my way to get gas every week. It takes at least 15 minutes extra on my way home (but thats only because the gas station on the route is about $1 a gallon more). i'd be prepared to add an hour twice a year in return for getting 15 minutes back 48 times a year. And the annoyance of having to make an unexpected trip when i was planning to get gas the next day (whereas i could keep an EV charged abouve 50% at all times).
  - GiorgioG 3y ago
    > How often do you do this? Get it through your heads, the frequency is irrelevant. We have this feature now with ICEs..and EVs do not. Some people will choose to stick with ICEs until such time that they reach parity in this department.
- insane_dreamer 3y ago
  We're in the first group and it definitely makes sense for us. 90% of our driving is in town, and we can recharge at night in our garage for a small fraction of the cost of gas. We also have 2 young kids. For vacations, camping trips, etc., we would take our Forester (which we already had before we bought an EV), but otherwise we don't need to use it. If we only had one car (and we did for years), we'd keep the EV and would rent an ICE SUV for long-range vacations (which, this being the U.S., we get precious little of), and still save tons of money.
- tnel77 3y ago
  I’m excited to one day own an EV, but the prices need to come down and charging infrastructure needs to continue to improve. I have a house that I’d do most of my charging at, but I want to feel comfortable driving anywhere in the country just like I currently experience with gasoline powered vehicles.
shmatt 3y ago
EVs aren't cheap either, in 2 years one will get better battery tech and a new connector, plus whatever deprecation the battery will go through if you buy one today. 2023-4 and earlier EVs will lose a huge chunk of their worth once NACS cars with better than 200 mile range become available The value of my leased Volvo C40 has already fallen off a cliff and is less than my residual value. Once my lease is over there will be an NACS EX-30 that will be cheaper brand new, than what Volvo are charging for me to keep my old connector used battery car
- _ea1k 3y ago
  Bolt starts at ~$26k. Civic starts at just under $24k. The Bolt is a mediocre road tripper, but lots of cars in that segment are just commuters that only very occasionally road trip. It'd be a great choice for a lot of people.
  - shmatt 3y ago
    Bolt can't fast charge, at some point we need to look beyond the single family home consumer
    - blackguardx 3y ago
      My Bolt supports DC charging at 55 kW. What is considered “fast?”
      - xeromal 3y ago
        The OG Tesla chargers charged at 125kW but the standard ones now charge at 250kW and a select few newer cars charge at 350kW. 55kW sounds like it uses Chademo?
        micromacrofoot 3y ago
        it uses CCS
        3y ago
_ea1k 3y ago
Yes, EVs are most convenient for well over half the country. I'd say that we are nowhere near saturation. But reading the room leads me to believe that there are a lot of people in your target demographic who think that EVs are for city dwellers. The biggest issues for getting from 10% to ~50% are communication, price, and availability.
- troyvit 3y ago
  An EV just doesn't do anything that my 2007 Pontiac Vibe doesn't do better. My car is worth about $3,000. It: - Has a 400 mile range - Can stop anywhere and refuel in just a few minutes, including very isolated areas - Plays all the music I want - Hauls anything I want (ie. I don't care if I trash the interior with a pile of mulch on a plastic tarp) - I can sleep in the back - Fits in nicely in my lower middle class neighborhood - Has plenty of spare parts at the junkyard if I need to repair it On top of that, it doesn't require a #$@# subscription, doesn't force me into some plutocrat's idea of an infotainment system, isn't tracked remotely, with that data being sold to randos, and doesn't cost as much as a Master's degree. Last thing is that while EVs are probably more environmentally friendly than a new ICE car, they still don't compete with a used one from the aughts over their lifetime.
  - tshaddox 3y ago
    Until you get in an accident. If you can afford a newer car, I hope your understandable affection for your Pontiac isn’t causing you to unknowingly significantly compromise your safety.
    - wakawaka28 3y ago
      EVs that catch fire are impossible to extinguish. EVs that are involved in accidents are recommended to be stored 50 feet apart and monitored by thermal cameras due to the tremendous risk of battery fires. It is not economical to fix EVs at this time. Someone was just quoted $60k to fix a Hyundai Ioniq because of dents on the bottom panel. Insurance companies, parking garages, and ferries are beginning to wise up and want nothing to do with EVs. Nevermind that half of the EVs out there don't have conventional mechanical door latches to let people out of the car should the power fail. EVs are far heavier than standard cars. I heard that they don't crumple as much either, to protect the battery from causing a bigger disaster. Rigid vehicles cause much more harsh deceleration in a crash, which is likely much worse for the people in the car. Look up the Youtube channels MGUY Australia or Geoff Buys Cars if you want some real dirt on EVs. Passenger EVs are barely practical, risky, and not nearly as environmentally sustainable as the marketing says. EV trucks (consumer and commercial) are a sick joke.
lmpdev 3y ago
All people in my network have moved on from EVs being the “solution” to transport The real solution we seem to roughly agree upon is getting cars as a whole off the road where possible Permanent investment in mass transit and any tech which plugs the gaps is the way forward in our view The often subpar urban planning in North America (think Phoenix not Montreal) is simply incompatible with a sustainable and decarbonised future Insisting on EVs over hybrids in the 2020s is a laughable total solution to the current situation we find ourselves in
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
  [dead]
- mikrotikker 3y ago
  What about for non urban?
mlinhares 3y ago
I'm on the single family home case and would really like to buy the ID Buzz to replace our Atlas (always wanted to own a Konbi) but it would be the second car in the home, we'd still keep our combustion SUV for the long trips and I think this is a lot of the current market for EVs. Trouble is that pricing is awful, availability is also awful (there's still no date for when the Buzz will be around in the US) and I'm pretty happy with the gas price at the moment, so other than hype to buy a Tesla there's not much reason to buy electric at the moment.
everdrive 3y ago
I'd take that even further. EVs make the most sense when all the conditions you noted are satisfied, _and_ the family can afford at least two cars, and it's not important that both cars have long range, and the family can afford the extra up-front cost of the EV. I've got a Nissan Frontier and a Nissan Leaf. The Leaf is older (2017) and has a degraded battery. (about 80% of its original life, and approximately 100 miles of range) The Leaf is very convenient for my wife, but primarily because she doesn't have a commute, and we have a more practical family car in situations where the EV won't cut it. Her mother lives with us, and also has a gas car as an additional backup. We got the Leaf for $11k used, and if the EV were our only car we'd have had to spend significantly more on a car with much more range (at least 230 miles or more) and we'd have required the installation of a fast charger to handle the longer range. (120v charging is really pretty suitable for a car with only 100 miles of range.) All of these would have introduced significant costs and constraints, which were only offset by the very low price of a used Leaf, and the fact that we always have a backup option.
- albrewer 3y ago
  I meet all the requirements you listed, but I _also_ need to make a 310 mile trip (1 way) fairly regularly. In a Prius, I can do that on one tank. In an EV, you've added at least 30-60 minutes to each leg of the trip, unless you spring for higher end models.
- doctorpangloss 3y ago
  > _and_ the family can afford at least two cars So you're saying EVs make the most sense for "people who buy cars?" Can't fault manufacturers for targeting that audience. Anyway you are pulling on the thread of unique selling points (USPs) which are among the many prevailing traditions in autos sales. I don't know how much they really matter in a secular sense.
  - everdrive 3y ago
    Not really. I'm saying that currently an EV fills a relatively small niche. For buyers without that specific niche requirement, an EV is usually overly expensive, or represents a pretty serious compromise in capability.
tshaddox 3y ago
> We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. From what I’m reading EVs are around 1% of total cars and around 10% of new car sales in the U.S., while at least 60% of housing units are single family homes.
- staticman2 3y ago
  Not all single family homes have driveways or garages- so not all are equipped for electric vehicle charging.
  - danans 3y ago
    But the vast majority do have driveways. In my WWI era neighborhood designed for horse-and buggies and later streetcars (must have been nice), nearly every 100 year old house has a driveway (carved from the 8-10 foot wide gap between the houses) and half of them have EVs in them. Most post-war suburban American single family homes have far more space than that for driveways for EV charging.
thereddaikon 3y ago
>nother factor that could be at play is that all the non-Tesla EV makers have recently announced they will switch their chargers to NACS, but this will take a couple of years to roll out, so it’s not a great time to buy a non-Tesla since it already has legacy charging hardware. This is a big factor and one I note to anyone I know who is thinking of buying an EV. You don't want to be stuck with a dead end tech. Buying a non-Tesla that hasn't already adopted the north american charger is a foolish move at this point. I'm sure there will be conversion kits for many models at some point but that's another cost and one you likely want to have a professional do. Best to either buy a Tesla or just wait a year or two.
- jewayne 3y ago
  Somebody check my facts here, but isn't the NACS/Tesla charging standard just CCS with a different plug? Shouldn't the CCS-to-NACS adapters available today work seamlessly both now and in the future? Am I missing something here?
  - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
    They are, but Tesla makes it difficult for non tesla owners to use their chargers as they have no built in 'pay here' infrastructure (at least from what I've seen)
resoluteteeth 3y ago
> EV’s currently make the most sense for people who own a single family home or otherwise live in a community with readily available near-home chargers, where EV’s are on average more convenient than gas cars If they are full EVs and not PHEVs they also make the most sense for households that have multiple cars where one of the other cars is a gas car. While the vast majority of trips are short, and charger networks are improving, a lot of people in the US drive longer distances at least occasionally, so it is much easier to replace one out of two cars in a household an electric car than switch to only using electric cars. I think that once enough people have EVs and the charger networks are better this will be less of an issue, but a lot of people seem to downplay this issue, which I think is not a good idea, because I think there's a genuine risk that there could be a chicken and egg problem to mass adoption of EVs where the market of people who are able to use an EV in 2024 could be saturated before enough people are using EVs to build out the charger network sufficiently.
aquaticsunset 3y ago
I think the market for the current lineup of EVs is tapping out. My wife and I own one that was very comparably equipped to a similar luxury crossover / SUV, and the type of driving we do in that car is perfectly within the capabilities of our range & charging habits. Never going to gas stations or getting the annual oil change is a nice convenient perk for us. But we fit right in this targeted demographic: 1) Can afford an expensive, new car 2) Own a home and can install an EV charger 3) Have a second ICE vehicle for long trips However, I can't imagine many people wanting EVs who fit this criteria don't have one by now. If the manufacturers want to keep selling EVs, they'll need to figure out how to replace the 2015 Accords and Tahoes without access to charging at home.
- LUmBULtERA 3y ago
  Uh, that market is far far from tapped out. Just drive around any neighborhood that likely fits those characteristics and the vast majority of cars you'll see are still ICE (maybe hybrid).
- aftbit 3y ago
  Hi! I'm one of these people. All three of those conditions are true for me, and yet I don't own an EV. Why? Because it seems like the technology is going to be much much better and cheaper in 5 years or less, and I'd hate to drop a big ball of cash on a new EV today when I can probably get either a better new one or a cheaper used one in just a couple of years.
  - qaq 3y ago
    It's obviously a matter of personal priorities. Someone might opt for 5 years of convenience vs potentially saving 10K and other person might opt to wait 5 years and save 10K.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Eh, I don't see it. Not a lot has changed in the last few years. They're all using lithium ion battery packs built around similar tech, and around 60kWh seems to be the standard sweet-spot. L2 charging is the most common (at home especially), and that hasn't changed in over a decade. They mostly have similar propulsion systems and similar efficiency. The good ones all have battery heating/cooling to extend battery life, and have for some time. The only major thing that has really altered has been the speed of DC fast charging. Which, TBH, is something that is only used on road trips, and takes a toll on battery life if you use it frequently anyways. So while I'd love an EV with really high kW DC fast charge, it's not something I'd make as my primary concern. FWIW, I'm in a 2017 Chevy Volt and drive it 95% electric only and have felt no real urge to upgrade. I'd love a bigger battery, and DC fast charge, I guess. But the actual electric driving experience isn't appreciably different on newer BEVs. I'll drive it into the ground for another 5 years, and then get an EV with a bigger battery. Toyota and others have spread a bit of FUD with promises of solid state batteries and the like, but I actually think EV technology right now is pretty mature and good. What's needed is infrastructure for apartment buildings, and city streets etc. for charging and that will only happen once consumers push for it. And, yeah, vehicle makers need to make economy-class EVs. That just hasn't happened yet in North America even though it absolutely could with battery prices being what they are now.
mattmaroon 3y ago
2/3 of Americans live in a home they or their immediate family own. They’re like 2% of car sales. The market is far from saturated. The reality is that range just isn’t there for most people, and the extra cost of an EV is far more than fuel savings. It’s going to take a better battery chemistry. That’s it.
sonicanatidae 3y ago
The problems for me are a few. EVs cost more. EVs take more than a couple of mins to "gas up". EV range is still lacking, compared to available charging stations, imo. When the market gets it right, I'll jump in with both feet, but I'm not spending twice the money on a car, then deal with horse shit like Tesla and others when it comes to service visits, scheduling, etc.
mrcarruthers 3y ago
This is why I bought a PHEV. Only one car, 90% of the time we're on electric, and I still have the gas engine for when I want to go far.
insane_dreamer 3y ago
> not a great time to buy a non-Tesla since it already has legacy charging hardware there will be adapters that will make current models compatible with Tesla's network once the switch is made(at least for Polestar, not sure about other brands)
- parineum 3y ago
  Adapters are incredibly annoying.
taylodl 3y ago
> We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. Not even close. Maybe 6% of the households in my neighborhood have an EV, and I have no reason to believe we don't represent the average upper middle class neighborhood. I would imagine that percentage to be considerably lower in middle class neighborhoods. That's why I say we're not even close to saturating the single family home market.

atestu 3y ago

I'm in that first group and I don't see how it makes the most sense. They are not more convenient. I can "charge" my gas car in 2 minutes basically anywhere in the country. I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. And they're all much more expensive than a nice 5 year old gas car.

arbitrary_name 3y ago
>It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation Uhhhh, that's crazy to me. I don't know anyone who drives that far for a holiday, especially with kids.
- avgDev 3y ago
  During COVID, I drove 24 hours to Florida. Longest stint of driving was 16 hours.
- s0rce 3y ago
  I do that, can be fun, there is so much to see on the way. Drove last Christmas from Riverside county to Bisbee, AZ and back via San Diego.
- bluGill 3y ago
  You apparently don't live in the US, or at least not in the midwest. I know a lot of people who do trips longer than that. Many Canadians out in the middle do similar trips as well (well there are not many Canadians living in that part of the country, but the ones who are there do it)
- sokoloff 3y ago
  With family 750 miles away and a dog that doesn’t fit into a pax cabin carrier, we do it at least once and sometimes twice a year. It’s a two pit-stop trip now that the kids are older; it used to be 4-5 stops when they were little.
willcipriano 3y ago
[flagged]
bragr 3y ago
> I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. With fast charging you typically only stop for 15-25 minutes, the infotainment or app does the planning for you, and the frequency you'll have to stop at matches the natural frequency people typically need to stop anyways by design.
- serial_dev 3y ago
  "It only takes 5x longer to charge at some specific charging stations that may or may not be conveniently located for your trip, I don't know what's the big deal" I can see how EV cars are good options for people who live in the city and only go grocery shopping, but for people who have family scattered around the country / continent with young children or babies, it sounds extremely inconvenient.
  - s3p 3y ago
    Sigh. As someone who just made two different 27 hour drives across the country in the last 6 months, I can tell you this is completely fine. Driving on major US highways you will always be able to plan it out and find one. Plus, I took longer breaks of that size anyway because every 2-3 hours I needed to get out of the car and stretch. Having forced time to get out of the car for a longer trip would have been beneficial for me.
    - thegrim33 3y ago
      And what if I want to drive on roads that are not one of the handful of major highways? And what if, unlike you, I can manage to sit down for more than 2-3 hours? The mental gymnastics are so weird to read. It's like .. for a horrible analogy, you're trying to defend a power drill which no longer drills, by saying "well hey, it works just fine, as long as you want to use it as a hammer and not as a drill, and hey, having to rotate it manually to actually screw something in is actually a good thing because it's good exercise".
  - LeafItAlone 3y ago
    That’s disingenuous because while pumping gas you remain with the vehicle (because it’s quick). With charging an EV, you charge while going inside to use the bathroom and get food. Provided there are available chargers and it is as convenient of an experience as a Tesla charging in a Supercharger, it’s very quick to set up. I drive a lot by myself and can see the convenience of popping it on a charger while running in. I am in and out very quickly, but even that short time can add reasonable distance. With small children it takes longer and you get more of a charge.
dzader 3y ago
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lucaspm98 3y ago
I've charged my EV at a public charging station less than 5 times in the past year. Instead of a 5 minute stop once a week at a gas station it's 5 seconds every time I get home to plug it in. Any trip within a 3 hour drive is possible round trip on a single charge. Any trip within a 5 hour drive is possible with no stops and destination charging, actually saving a stop. Any trip over a 5 hour drive generally takes less time and costs less to fly (I'm sure with many edge cases around rural destinations). Even on long road trips, charging from 20-80% takes 15-20 minutes and most drivers will at least need a bathroom break every 3-4 hours. New Tesla Model 3 prices are comparable to entry level sedans like the Civic and Camry. Used Chevy Bolt's are abundant at <$20k with much less ongoing maintenance costs versus used gas cars. There aren't yet affordable large SUVs and trucks if those are your only vehicles in consideration.
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  >New Tesla Model 3 prices are comparable [in cost] to entry level sedans like the Civic and Camry. I was with you until this. This is provably false just by going to the tesla and toyota websites.
  - megaman821 3y ago
    With the rebate a Model 3 is within a couple grand of Camry similarly equipped.
  - zaroth 3y ago
    Well… 2024 Camry XLE with Nav and Cold Weather - $36,965 Tesla Model 3 - $38,990 - without any credits or subsidies. But worth noting two things - first, there may be significant State tax credits for buying a Model 3, and the base Model 3 currently doesn’t qualify for the $7,500 Federal subsidy, only as of 12/31/23. In other words, last week the base Model 3 was at least $7,500 cheaper than $38,990.
    - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
      Why are you not comparing base prices? This is extremely misleading as you're misrepresenting the Camry and including the rebate (even though you say you're not). According to their US websites, the 2024 Camry starts at $26,420. The Model 3 starts at $46500 (not including the $7500 rebate).
calamari4065 3y ago
It's more convenient when you can charge at home overnight when you aren't using the car
natch 3y ago
I don’t think I’ve ever done a 45 minute charge stop in many trips between California and faraway places including Colorado, Montana, and Texas. These are not day trips. People read stuff and just believe it without questioning. Most of my charge stops are much quicker than what you think. 10 minutes usually. Sometimes 20 or more ahead of a long desert stretch where gas stations are also few and far between, but usually 10. The most priceless thing though is safety for your family. I read about accidents people had in their nice 5 year old gas cars, and it’s just sad to me that they didn’t see the options for what they were, and could have easily afforded a much safer car, but instead based their choices on bad information about supposed long charging times and supposed long lines at chargers.
- s3p 3y ago
  Agreed :) I've driven a Wrangler since I got my drivers license (nearly a decade ago) and I am just waiting for the day I am side swiped or my car rolls over due to some unforseen accident. Whether it's my fault or not. I love my car but the safety ratings are abysmal and I for one look forward to the day I have a savings high enough to afford a safe EV.
  - ttt3ts 3y ago
    Man, I miss my TJ. I now have a family car with excellent crash ratings. Take the top off and enjoy it while you can :P
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  I'm sorry I was with you until you started talking about safety? Gas cars are not inherently unsafe. Yes, a lot of EVs have very high crash safety ratings but I'd be willing to bet a volvo is safer overall even if tesla has managed to game some scores. I will admit that evs typically have a much lower rollover risk, but frankly stability control will not let you drive a car beyond it's limits. Even a hulking SUV is pretty hard to rollover these days.
  - natch 3y ago
    I'm sure Volvos are safe (definitely far behind Tesla though, I've owned multiple of both) but now knowing that Volvo is a China owned company, I would never buy one for that reason, nothing to do with safety.
syntheticnature 3y ago
Tangent: As someone driving a gas car, I would like to know how your car takes only 2 minutes to refuel. 5 minutes? Certainly, if the station is not getting heavy traffic (which seems to slow the pumps), and on a long trip it's quite likely it will a busy interstate-side station that might get to ten minutes due to slow-flowing gas. Even so, as we both know, it's unlikely to reach 15 minutes as discussed else-thread, and while I do need breaks on a trip, 15 minutes is about the maximum I want to take unless I'm eating.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
  Maybe it depends on what you drive? My car takes about 6-7 gallons when empty, but I see tons of other cars taking huge amounts.
  - happyopossum 3y ago
    Maybe it's a North America thing, but I can't think of a (purely ICE) car here that has anything smaller than a ~13 gallon tank... Maybe there are a few with 10-12 gallon ones, but they'd be outliers for sure. For a typical family-hauler that's be used on road trips like a Honda Odyssey, 16-20 gallons is totally common.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
      Huh, I'm in the SF bay area with a prius (advertised as a 11.9 gallon tank, but due to one thing or another, it's never more than 7 even when beeping at me to refill. But I do agree that pretty much every time I fill up and look at what the previous car used, it's some crazy high number in comparison.
outlace 3y ago
I would guess most single family home owners have two or more cars. This is a total guess based on my own situation and those of people I know who own EV’s but most EV owners with a single family home will also own a gas car. So an EV is more convenient than a gas car for daily commutes because you never have to go to a gas station. For the rare times you go on a long trip, you just take the gas car or you put up with having a longer trip in the EV.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > I would guess most single family home owners have two or more cars. I was curious so looked this up. Not sure how good these stats are, but here's what I found at https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-statistics/ https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-st... The average US household owns 2.28 vehicles. 35% of US households own three or more cars. I found that interesting because almost no household that I personally know owns more than one vehicle (regardless of income level), so there may be large geographical variances here. Also interesting is that the total number of registered vehicles in the US declined by over 25 million between 2012 and 2019. There is hope!
  - trgn 3y ago
    > Also interesting is that the total number of registered vehicles in the US declined by over 25 million between 2012 and 2019. There is hope! Really? Awesome! The future is bright indeed. EVs are objectively better than ICE-cars, they don't nearly trash up the city as much as ICE-cars (less noisy, less stinky, no gas stations, nothing trashes up a neighborhood than a gas station), but a lot feel like they have made strides in being safer for pedestrians, cyclists, ... Hard to square with the overall increased aggressive vibe in overall traffic, more antisocial driving, larger cars, meaner looking cars, ...
  - burntsushi 3y ago
    Out here in the suburbs of Massachusetts, it is very common to see 3 (or more) cars in the driveways of single family homes. In my experience, it's usually because some of the cars belong to one or more of the kids who live there. And each parent usually has their own car. Growing up, getting a car was a watershed moment for me personally. It marked a transition into a new type of independence from my parents, and also the primary motivation for getting my first job. It was liberating. Out here, it's not feasible to get anywhere, really, without a car. Before getting my own car, if I needed to get somewhere, I had to convince some adult (usually my parents or a friend's parents) to take us there.
hotpotamus 3y ago
I'd think a bit of inconvenience would be worth it for a better future for your children as well as all the world's children, but I've been around long enough to come to the understanding that that's just wishful thinking on my part; truly you are just one incredibly minuscule drop in the ocean of carbon emissions that will doom us. I don't envy young children the future world they're going to inherit.
- everdrive 3y ago
  Don't worry, at some point those children will grow up. They'll cease to be innocent victims, and will be forced into the same moral compromises that all adults are forced into. My only hope is that some of them will realize how silly their youthful generational blame had been.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    I assume all of us heard something to the effect of "you'll understand it when you grow up". Fair enough, but I guess I never really grew up because the older I get, the less I understand any of this really. As far as I can tell, everyone is just trying to "get their kicks in before the whole shithouse goes up in flames" to quote Jim Morrison. I wish I could do that, but it seems to be beyond me not to worry about the future.
    - everdrive 3y ago
      Contrary to stereotype, I don't think most adults are _intentionally_ passing the buck to the next generation so much as they are _incidentally_ passing the buck to the next generation. They don't know how to live without producing carbon & other waste, and there are practical expenses they need to answer for. (bills, family members, putting food on the table) Most adults don't have many skills beyond using the infrastructure which is laid out for them. (roads, cars, supermarkets, public schools, available careers, etc.) And crucially, my point is that today's kids will simply not be in a better situation. They'll have the tools of society at their hands, and in general, not much more. I don't love child labor, but I genuinely have no practical way to know if my clothing was produced via child labor. (I buy 99% of my clothing used, so hopefully that's helping) I don't have any practical way to know if my plastic recycling isn't getting dumped in the ocean in Turkey. I'd like to use less carbon, but my wife isn't willing to live with the heat set any lower than 62 F. Etc. The impacts which I can make are pretty small. Populations are rising, and technology is not the panacea some people think. Technology can improve carbon output, but everyone needs to eat and live. This will always be deleterious to the environment, and the "victim" generation will eventually grow up to be the victimizers as they have to run governments and companies. They'll be faced with compromises they can't avoid, no matter their politics.
pentae 3y ago
I feel the same way and after speaking with many EV people i've realised the main benefit is how cheap they are to run. This comes down to the increase in efficiency compared to an ICE - ~80% of the battery energy finds its way to the wheels on EV's, vs ~30% on an ICE. If you live somewhere where electric costs are very low then a 0 to full charge your EV costs about $10. (Someone please correct me if i'm off on this one) Depending on your mileage, by saving $3k-$4k a year on gas theres certainly a case to be made for an EV being a more sensible financial decision in the long term especially given government tax incentives One of the biggest reason for the massive disparity in efficiency on EV's is due to regenerative braking (16-25%). So what's interesting is when you compare an EV to a Hybrid ICE vehicle then the efficiency disparity becomes a lot less and you still have the benefit of being able to take long trips and not needing a home charger. Anyone thats driven a Hybrid Toyota will tell you that fuel consumption is dramatically less, in my real world scenarios I use about 2.5x less gas in something like a Toyota Corolla Cross compared to my not overly thirsty ICE BMW. Another benefit to Hybrids is they only require a ~1kWh battery instead of needing a huge 60-70kWh battery like an EV. So you could create 60 or 70 hybrid vehicles for the same amount of lithium mining as one EV. One has to wonder why the governments aren't just pushing everyone into Hybrids instead of EV's? If a young person was asking me to recommend a car and they didn't have a home charger I wouldn't hesitate to recommend something like a new Toyota HEV / Honda e:hev - they are basically an EV with an on-board Atkinson engine as a powerplant.
- recursive 3y ago
  > i've realised the main benefit is how cheap they are to run Depends what you value. For me, that's a nice to have. Greater benefits are: never go to a gas station, no oil changes, no fumes, more fun to drive.
  - conk 3y ago
    IMO the lack of fumes/exhaust is my favorite part of owning an EV. Sure there are some downsides with EVs (more expensive to buy, less range, lack of public charging infrastructure) but those don’t impact me and I’d gladly take the negatives for a car that doesn’t smell every time I park it in my garage.
kaiken1987 3y ago
Realistically having done road trips, it's stopping every 3 hours and it's not 45 minutes, it's basically the amount of time it takes to get 2 kids out of the car, in to use the restrooms, and back into the car.
- themaninthedark 3y ago
  That depends; When I had toddlers, like the parent, I would often drive at night while they were asleep. Now they are older and we travel more in the day but it is around 4 hours and have to schedule a meal.
huytersd 3y ago
I’m in the first group with a 30 minute commute every morning. With the solar panels on my roof, transportation is essentially free for me.
tshaddox 3y ago
It all depends on how much importance you put on those few road trips per year. With an EV those few road trips definitely take slightly more time, but the rest of the year (assuming you can charge at home or work) you never go to a gas station or charging station and almost certainly save vastly more time over the entire year.
sigspec 3y ago
It's always the "vacation that I take once a year" that people use as an excuse, meanwhile families are filling two vehicles twice a week. Get real and get new material.
- themaninthedark 3y ago
  I recently changed job; I used to fill my car every week now every other week. (60 miles roundtrip to 30 miles roundtrip) I also have some times where I have to drive 10.2 hours(730 miles one way) almost non-stop. When I have to do something like that, I want to drive. Not stop and wait. The Tesla trip planner with the Model 3 Long Range edition for that drive show it will take 13h for the same drive so about 28% longer with 4 stops @ 30min each. Realize that people have different use cases.
  - lanstin 3y ago
    It would be cool, if climate change were a convenient truth, rather than slightly inconvenient.
    - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
      it would be cool if people felt like the environmental benefits were enough and didn't have to muddy the waters with made up other factoids. if you want to buy an EV for the environment, great, more power to you, but stop trying to convince people that it's reasonable to sit and wait 45 minutes every few hours. You may find that acceptable but many of us don't.
      - lanstin 3y ago
        I wouldn't find it acceptible but also I don't do that. Like people said more like 15 minutes. There's some art to it - don't charge to full during the trip, and to reduce your trip time, reduce your velocity to lower than max safe speed. I do find it would be reasonable to pass laws to force you to switch to an EV even if it causes you some inconvenience, so that the likely future of my children and their peers is better.
AYBABTME 3y ago
I drove from Reno to LA recently in a Model Y and my charging stops all lined up with bathroom breaks and food. I never actually waited for the charging process itself. It doesn't take 45min and it's not like I have any interest in sitting for more than 3h-4h straight without stopping at all. I've done plenty of long distance trips with my kids and the Tesla and, really, charging is a non-issue. The only actual negative I have is that chargers aren't as present in remote locations and if it's not a Tesla charger, it's not real. Also when towing a camper uphill to Yosemite, it was stressful but we made it on top.
- mythhabit 3y ago
  As more and more people buy EVs, it's not uncommon that the charging infrastructure is not expanding at the same rate. Many EV owners I know, have all experienced to wait in a line for 15 min charge on a trip. Those that have had a Tesla for 7-8 years all agree that it is a relatively new thing. The infrastructure will improve and will expand to keep up, but it is one of the teething issues that is slowing mass adoption.
- NegativeK 3y ago
  Different strokes, different folks. I prefer stopping every four hours, and making the stop take less than 10 minutes. Having my EV is very much worth it overall, but it _is_ annoying to add more than an hour for every eight hours of driving.
  - AYBABTME 3y ago
    I'm in good shape and healthy and if I sit and drive for more than 3h straight, my body is quite unhappy with it. It's possible but not a good idea.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
organsnyder 3y ago
I just did a road trip with my family (four kids aged 6-13). If we had an EV, I would have simply topped off the battery any time we stopped for a bathroom break (I get excited whenever we're able to pass a service plaza without someone needing to go).
christiangenco 3y ago
My wife and I own a single family home, a gas-powered car (Toyota Rav4), and an electric car (a standard range Tesla model 3). The electric car is much more convenient for us for city driving and the gas-powered car is much more convenient for road trips. Refuelling the Rav4 is an errand that takes time, planning, and mental energy. For my wife it's also a low-level danger: women find gas stations spooky, apparently. Refuelling the Tesla is automatic and effortless. After you park at home, if the charge is <40% then plug it in. The next time you need to drive somewhere it will be full. It took me an afternoon hanging out with my electrician cousin and about $400 in parts from Amazon to build our own at-home electric refuelling station. Road trips with the Tesla, however, are currently impractical: we end up adding another ~30% to the drive time. With only a ~220 mile range the Tesla needs to stop about every 150 miles for 40 minutes which is brutal. Range anxiety also becomes a much bigger factor driving through more rural areas and your route choices weigh supercharger locations above everything else. We've got used to the self driving convenience of the Tesla but the Comma[1] on our Rav4 is just about as good for highway driving. 1. https://comma.ai/ https://comma.ai/
- hiddencost 3y ago
  I hope you're really good to that cousin. It's damn hard to get time with skilled contractors.
- tannedNerd 3y ago
  I have a SR+ and have done about a dozen trips from Lake Tahoe to San Diego and back about 10 hours in a ICE car and 11.25 in my SR+ You really should never be charging past 70% (the exception being before climbing in sub freezing temps in the sierras) on road trips and instead plan to make much shorter charging stops more often. I’m normally out of a supercharger in 15-20 min if I precondition the battery before charging and it’s about the time my wife needs to stop for a pee break anyways so it’s kinda great to stop. Use the restroom and be ready to go again. If you are charging 45 min you are doing it so wrong.
  - Solvency 3y ago
    This entire idea just underscores the inane mental burden for the average person just to drive their car long distance.
conductr 3y ago
I’m in that first group too and I bought a new car in 2023. I went ICE ultimately because I didn’t see many electric options I would want. Cars are part fashion so I wanted to “like it”. But I also mostly car about reliability and longevity as I usually buy new but keep for 10-12 years and don’t want the inconvenience of maintenance beyond the routine stuff. In the past, this put me in a Honda/Toyota but this time I was open and even wanted something more luxurious/expensive. Most EVs are just unproven in my opinion. Just because it says Mercedes, nice test drive I don’t want to be their EV Guinea pig in terms of long term ownership. Companies like Rivian, cool but way too new for me to even blink an eye at. This basically left me with Tesla as an only option. If you do any research at all you’ll hear/see how hit and miss their build quality is. Seems worse on certain models, but ultimately I also know too much about Musk’s management style and it does the opposite of instilling confidence in the product. I also happen to just not “like” the interior/dash setup. So, I just felt like I was sacrificing /risking too much with EV. The other issue in some cases, the EV has been announced with a release date and accepting deposits but I couldn’t actually purchase one like I needed/wanted too; Too much friction in 2023. I ended up in a Lexus. Basically the luxury Toyota. So i essentially kept my purchasing behavior unchanged due to not finding any compelling EV, but i kicked some EV tires.
- aftbit 3y ago
  Don't get a Mercedes if you want reliable. Spoken from second hand experience at least. Toyota and Lexus are hard to beat.
  - conductr 3y ago
    Yeah I have that long standing impression too. Heard a lot of bad stories over the years on all the German manufacturers except maybe VW. It was something I considered sacrificing on as it seems the be a luxury tax of sorts. They do make more luxurious vehicles than Lexus, but it’s pretty marginal IMO after consideration even on their ICE vehicles. I’d probably have gone with a loaded GM/Ford over a German vehicle. Domestic manufactures also have a dealership problem though. They are the sleeziest of them all and I just really get turned off by it. Also, I didn’t need a tank in the Yukon but also didn’t like their smaller SUVs as much.
r0m4n0 3y ago
Based upon the amount of comments here this must be a controversial comment but I can’t imagine how you do this. With one toddler, she can barely make a 1 hour trip let alone 11 hours. I could use an electric vehicle with a 90 mile range for that trip because that’s about how often I would need to stop. Props to you for keeping 2 toddlers in the car for 11 hours
- GiorgioG 3y ago
  Toughen up your toddlers ;) A decade ago we moved from one state (NY) to another (NC) with an 18 month old and a 6 year old. We did the 650 mile trip at night in way longer than 10.5 hours it should have taken due to horrible weather, traffic, etc...but we didn't stop for anything other than gas and one or two coffee breaks.
pwthornton 3y ago
EV stops have a big advantage in that they force you to get out and move around a bit. Sitting in a car all day is bad for you. Taking a break every few hours is good. Walking around during that break is ideal. You don't want to give yourself a blood clot on a family vacation.
- tines 3y ago
  Is there a name for when someone bends over backwards to paint a disadvantage as an advantage? I guess it's the same as the old "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" trope.
  - pwthornton 3y ago
    It's the opposite. Supposed advantages often get you into trouble. Constraints, in this case not being able to drive for eight-straight hours, is a good thing. Constraints are often a good thing because they introduce just enough friction to prevent us from harming ourselves.
    - tines 3y ago
      You can make this case for anything though, as with every advantage comes a downside. "Horse-drawn carriages have a big advantage in that they force you to not go as fast, and so they make crashes less fatal. Crashing a car is bad for you. Going slow is good." This isn't a real argument though; how fast I go is my business, and how long I drive is my business as well. If I have two people in a car, we can trade off and solve your "driving too long" problem in a way that doesn't compromise ability. Nobody is going to buy this rationale. An EV can do less than a gas car (in this area), and it's just worse. From your argument, it follows that we should push auto manufacturers to make the gas tanks of non-EVs smaller, so that it's impossible to drive for longer than 8 hours on one tank of gas. This is just a terrible position, it doesn't even merit being argued against. In fact, making up rationalizations like this is so much worse than doing nothing, because it saps the incentive to improve things. If we delude ourselves into thinking that a car that can do less is better, then we'll never make it better, fewer people will purchase them, and we'll blame everyone else for not buying into our delusion.
scarby2 3y ago
>I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car. How often do you do this? Once, maybe twice a year? With my current commute i have to go out of my way to get gas every week. It takes at least 15 minutes extra on my way home (but thats only because the gas station on the route is about $1 a gallon more). i'd be prepared to add an hour twice a year in return for getting 15 minutes back 48 times a year. And the annoyance of having to make an unexpected trip when i was planning to get gas the next day (whereas i could keep an EV charged abouve 50% at all times).
- GiorgioG 3y ago
  > How often do you do this? Get it through your heads, the frequency is irrelevant. We have this feature now with ICEs..and EVs do not. Some people will choose to stick with ICEs until such time that they reach parity in this department.
insane_dreamer 3y ago
We're in the first group and it definitely makes sense for us. 90% of our driving is in town, and we can recharge at night in our garage for a small fraction of the cost of gas. We also have 2 young kids. For vacations, camping trips, etc., we would take our Forester (which we already had before we bought an EV), but otherwise we don't need to use it. If we only had one car (and we did for years), we'd keep the EV and would rent an ICE SUV for long-range vacations (which, this being the U.S., we get precious little of), and still save tons of money.
tnel77 3y ago
I’m excited to one day own an EV, but the prices need to come down and charging infrastructure needs to continue to improve. I have a house that I’d do most of my charging at, but I want to feel comfortable driving anywhere in the country just like I currently experience with gasoline powered vehicles.

shmatt 3y ago

EVs aren't cheap either, in 2 years one will get better battery tech and a new connector, plus whatever deprecation the battery will go through if you buy one today. 2023-4 and earlier EVs will lose a huge chunk of their worth once NACS cars with better than 200 mile range become available The value of my leased Volvo C40 has already fallen off a cliff and is less than my residual value. Once my lease is over there will be an NACS EX-30 that will be cheaper brand new, than what Volvo are charging for me to keep my old connector used battery car

_ea1k 3y ago
Bolt starts at ~$26k. Civic starts at just under $24k. The Bolt is a mediocre road tripper, but lots of cars in that segment are just commuters that only very occasionally road trip. It'd be a great choice for a lot of people.
- shmatt 3y ago
  Bolt can't fast charge, at some point we need to look beyond the single family home consumer
  - blackguardx 3y ago
    My Bolt supports DC charging at 55 kW. What is considered “fast?”
    - xeromal 3y ago
      The OG Tesla chargers charged at 125kW but the standard ones now charge at 250kW and a select few newer cars charge at 350kW. 55kW sounds like it uses Chademo?
      - micromacrofoot 3y ago
        it uses CCS
      - 3y ago

_ea1k 3y ago

Yes, EVs are most convenient for well over half the country. I'd say that we are nowhere near saturation. But reading the room leads me to believe that there are a lot of people in your target demographic who think that EVs are for city dwellers. The biggest issues for getting from 10% to ~50% are communication, price, and availability.

troyvit 3y ago
An EV just doesn't do anything that my 2007 Pontiac Vibe doesn't do better. My car is worth about $3,000. It: - Has a 400 mile range - Can stop anywhere and refuel in just a few minutes, including very isolated areas - Plays all the music I want - Hauls anything I want (ie. I don't care if I trash the interior with a pile of mulch on a plastic tarp) - I can sleep in the back - Fits in nicely in my lower middle class neighborhood - Has plenty of spare parts at the junkyard if I need to repair it On top of that, it doesn't require a #$@# subscription, doesn't force me into some plutocrat's idea of an infotainment system, isn't tracked remotely, with that data being sold to randos, and doesn't cost as much as a Master's degree. Last thing is that while EVs are probably more environmentally friendly than a new ICE car, they still don't compete with a used one from the aughts over their lifetime.
- tshaddox 3y ago
  Until you get in an accident. If you can afford a newer car, I hope your understandable affection for your Pontiac isn’t causing you to unknowingly significantly compromise your safety.
  - wakawaka28 3y ago
    EVs that catch fire are impossible to extinguish. EVs that are involved in accidents are recommended to be stored 50 feet apart and monitored by thermal cameras due to the tremendous risk of battery fires. It is not economical to fix EVs at this time. Someone was just quoted $60k to fix a Hyundai Ioniq because of dents on the bottom panel. Insurance companies, parking garages, and ferries are beginning to wise up and want nothing to do with EVs. Nevermind that half of the EVs out there don't have conventional mechanical door latches to let people out of the car should the power fail. EVs are far heavier than standard cars. I heard that they don't crumple as much either, to protect the battery from causing a bigger disaster. Rigid vehicles cause much more harsh deceleration in a crash, which is likely much worse for the people in the car. Look up the Youtube channels MGUY Australia or Geoff Buys Cars if you want some real dirt on EVs. Passenger EVs are barely practical, risky, and not nearly as environmentally sustainable as the marketing says. EV trucks (consumer and commercial) are a sick joke.

lmpdev 3y ago

All people in my network have moved on from EVs being the “solution” to transport The real solution we seem to roughly agree upon is getting cars as a whole off the road where possible Permanent investment in mass transit and any tech which plugs the gaps is the way forward in our view The often subpar urban planning in North America (think Phoenix not Montreal) is simply incompatible with a sustainable and decarbonised future Insisting on EVs over hybrids in the 2020s is a laughable total solution to the current situation we find ourselves in

AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
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mikrotikker 3y ago
What about for non urban?

mlinhares 3y ago

I'm on the single family home case and would really like to buy the ID Buzz to replace our Atlas (always wanted to own a Konbi) but it would be the second car in the home, we'd still keep our combustion SUV for the long trips and I think this is a lot of the current market for EVs. Trouble is that pricing is awful, availability is also awful (there's still no date for when the Buzz will be around in the US) and I'm pretty happy with the gas price at the moment, so other than hype to buy a Tesla there's not much reason to buy electric at the moment.

everdrive 3y ago

I'd take that even further. EVs make the most sense when all the conditions you noted are satisfied, _and_ the family can afford at least two cars, and it's not important that both cars have long range, and the family can afford the extra up-front cost of the EV. I've got a Nissan Frontier and a Nissan Leaf. The Leaf is older (2017) and has a degraded battery. (about 80% of its original life, and approximately 100 miles of range) The Leaf is very convenient for my wife, but primarily because she doesn't have a commute, and we have a more practical family car in situations where the EV won't cut it. Her mother lives with us, and also has a gas car as an additional backup. We got the Leaf for $11k used, and if the EV were our only car we'd have had to spend significantly more on a car with much more range (at least 230 miles or more) and we'd have required the installation of a fast charger to handle the longer range. (120v charging is really pretty suitable for a car with only 100 miles of range.) All of these would have introduced significant costs and constraints, which were only offset by the very low price of a used Leaf, and the fact that we always have a backup option.

albrewer 3y ago
I meet all the requirements you listed, but I _also_ need to make a 310 mile trip (1 way) fairly regularly. In a Prius, I can do that on one tank. In an EV, you've added at least 30-60 minutes to each leg of the trip, unless you spring for higher end models.
doctorpangloss 3y ago
> _and_ the family can afford at least two cars So you're saying EVs make the most sense for "people who buy cars?" Can't fault manufacturers for targeting that audience. Anyway you are pulling on the thread of unique selling points (USPs) which are among the many prevailing traditions in autos sales. I don't know how much they really matter in a secular sense.
- everdrive 3y ago
  Not really. I'm saying that currently an EV fills a relatively small niche. For buyers without that specific niche requirement, an EV is usually overly expensive, or represents a pretty serious compromise in capability.

tshaddox 3y ago

> We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. From what I’m reading EVs are around 1% of total cars and around 10% of new car sales in the U.S., while at least 60% of housing units are single family homes.

staticman2 3y ago
Not all single family homes have driveways or garages- so not all are equipped for electric vehicle charging.
- danans 3y ago
  But the vast majority do have driveways. In my WWI era neighborhood designed for horse-and buggies and later streetcars (must have been nice), nearly every 100 year old house has a driveway (carved from the 8-10 foot wide gap between the houses) and half of them have EVs in them. Most post-war suburban American single family homes have far more space than that for driveways for EV charging.

thereddaikon 3y ago

>nother factor that could be at play is that all the non-Tesla EV makers have recently announced they will switch their chargers to NACS, but this will take a couple of years to roll out, so it’s not a great time to buy a non-Tesla since it already has legacy charging hardware. This is a big factor and one I note to anyone I know who is thinking of buying an EV. You don't want to be stuck with a dead end tech. Buying a non-Tesla that hasn't already adopted the north american charger is a foolish move at this point. I'm sure there will be conversion kits for many models at some point but that's another cost and one you likely want to have a professional do. Best to either buy a Tesla or just wait a year or two.

jewayne 3y ago
Somebody check my facts here, but isn't the NACS/Tesla charging standard just CCS with a different plug? Shouldn't the CCS-to-NACS adapters available today work seamlessly both now and in the future? Am I missing something here?
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  They are, but Tesla makes it difficult for non tesla owners to use their chargers as they have no built in 'pay here' infrastructure (at least from what I've seen)

resoluteteeth 3y ago

> EV’s currently make the most sense for people who own a single family home or otherwise live in a community with readily available near-home chargers, where EV’s are on average more convenient than gas cars If they are full EVs and not PHEVs they also make the most sense for households that have multiple cars where one of the other cars is a gas car. While the vast majority of trips are short, and charger networks are improving, a lot of people in the US drive longer distances at least occasionally, so it is much easier to replace one out of two cars in a household an electric car than switch to only using electric cars. I think that once enough people have EVs and the charger networks are better this will be less of an issue, but a lot of people seem to downplay this issue, which I think is not a good idea, because I think there's a genuine risk that there could be a chicken and egg problem to mass adoption of EVs where the market of people who are able to use an EV in 2024 could be saturated before enough people are using EVs to build out the charger network sufficiently.

aquaticsunset 3y ago

I think the market for the current lineup of EVs is tapping out. My wife and I own one that was very comparably equipped to a similar luxury crossover / SUV, and the type of driving we do in that car is perfectly within the capabilities of our range & charging habits. Never going to gas stations or getting the annual oil change is a nice convenient perk for us. But we fit right in this targeted demographic: 1) Can afford an expensive, new car 2) Own a home and can install an EV charger 3) Have a second ICE vehicle for long trips However, I can't imagine many people wanting EVs who fit this criteria don't have one by now. If the manufacturers want to keep selling EVs, they'll need to figure out how to replace the 2015 Accords and Tahoes without access to charging at home.

LUmBULtERA 3y ago
Uh, that market is far far from tapped out. Just drive around any neighborhood that likely fits those characteristics and the vast majority of cars you'll see are still ICE (maybe hybrid).
aftbit 3y ago
Hi! I'm one of these people. All three of those conditions are true for me, and yet I don't own an EV. Why? Because it seems like the technology is going to be much much better and cheaper in 5 years or less, and I'd hate to drop a big ball of cash on a new EV today when I can probably get either a better new one or a cheaper used one in just a couple of years.
- qaq 3y ago
  It's obviously a matter of personal priorities. Someone might opt for 5 years of convenience vs potentially saving 10K and other person might opt to wait 5 years and save 10K.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Eh, I don't see it. Not a lot has changed in the last few years. They're all using lithium ion battery packs built around similar tech, and around 60kWh seems to be the standard sweet-spot. L2 charging is the most common (at home especially), and that hasn't changed in over a decade. They mostly have similar propulsion systems and similar efficiency. The good ones all have battery heating/cooling to extend battery life, and have for some time. The only major thing that has really altered has been the speed of DC fast charging. Which, TBH, is something that is only used on road trips, and takes a toll on battery life if you use it frequently anyways. So while I'd love an EV with really high kW DC fast charge, it's not something I'd make as my primary concern. FWIW, I'm in a 2017 Chevy Volt and drive it 95% electric only and have felt no real urge to upgrade. I'd love a bigger battery, and DC fast charge, I guess. But the actual electric driving experience isn't appreciably different on newer BEVs. I'll drive it into the ground for another 5 years, and then get an EV with a bigger battery. Toyota and others have spread a bit of FUD with promises of solid state batteries and the like, but I actually think EV technology right now is pretty mature and good. What's needed is infrastructure for apartment buildings, and city streets etc. for charging and that will only happen once consumers push for it. And, yeah, vehicle makers need to make economy-class EVs. That just hasn't happened yet in North America even though it absolutely could with battery prices being what they are now.

mattmaroon 3y ago

2/3 of Americans live in a home they or their immediate family own. They’re like 2% of car sales. The market is far from saturated. The reality is that range just isn’t there for most people, and the extra cost of an EV is far more than fuel savings. It’s going to take a better battery chemistry. That’s it.

sonicanatidae 3y ago

The problems for me are a few. EVs cost more. EVs take more than a couple of mins to "gas up". EV range is still lacking, compared to available charging stations, imo. When the market gets it right, I'll jump in with both feet, but I'm not spending twice the money on a car, then deal with horse shit like Tesla and others when it comes to service visits, scheduling, etc.

mrcarruthers 3y ago

This is why I bought a PHEV. Only one car, 90% of the time we're on electric, and I still have the gas engine for when I want to go far.

insane_dreamer 3y ago

> not a great time to buy a non-Tesla since it already has legacy charging hardware there will be adapters that will make current models compatible with Tesla's network once the switch is made(at least for Polestar, not sure about other brands)

parineum 3y ago
Adapters are incredibly annoying.

taylodl 3y ago

> We may be close to saturating the market for the former group. Not even close. Maybe 6% of the households in my neighborhood have an EV, and I have no reason to believe we don't represent the average upper middle class neighborhood. I would imagine that percentage to be considerably lower in middle class neighborhoods. That's why I say we're not even close to saturating the single family home market.