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My brother lives in Maine and has two electric cars. I have one and travel in Maine a few times a year. It's a particularly bad state for charging. I'm not sure

My brother lives in Maine and has two electric cars. I have one and travel in Maine a few times a year. It's a particularly bad state for charging. I'm not sure why that is.

gnicholas 3y ago
I imagine the temperature doesn't help. Compared to CA (where the columnist is from), the average temp is probably 20° colder, which could cut 15% off the range.
- samatman 3y ago
  This is unlikely to be the central factor, given that Norway, one of the few inhabited places which is colder than Maine, has the highest rate of electric car ownership in the world. That's in spite of the range issue, and is due to the Norwegian government carrot-and-sticking heavily towards electric. Maine has no such incentives, and is sparsely populated, which doesn't play to the strengths of electric cars.
  - DFHippie 3y ago
    Maine is sparsely populated, but most of its population is concentrated in a narrow strip along the coast. Actually, this is probably true of Norway as well.
  - joncrocks 3y ago
    Also worth noting that in Norway, they will often have cars with engine block heaters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_heater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_heater), with associated plug points in parking spaces/places. Makes it much easier if there's already infrastructure.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Norway has huge financial incentives for buying EVs, including exemption from VAT and registration fees. This has added up to billions of USD in subsidies, [1] and is why there are so many EVs in Norway. I'd be very surprised if their neighbors, who have similar climate but fewer incentives, see the same rate of adoption. Norway shows that you can have EVs in a place that is very cold if you shovel cash at buyers. It doesn't prove that weather wouldn't be a central factor in a place like Maine. 1: https://www.oecd.org/climate-action/ipac/practices/norway-s-evolving-incentives-for-zero-emission-vehicles-22d2485b/ https://www.oecd.org/climate-action/ipac/practices/norway-s-...
- DFHippie 3y ago
  Yeah, the cold hurts the range, but not all that much. The central (I was going to say "main") thing is that Maine is a charging desert. Bar Harbor, the destination of most of the out-of-state Teslas, has almost nowhere to charge. I went to a hotel once which promised to have 4 level-2 Tesla chargers. All of the spots were occupied by ICE trucks. I went in to point out this problem to the clerk. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "they're probably our customers." Apparently the chargers were just there to lure in suckers. "Yes, we have chargers, but good luck using one. They tend to be parked in by ICE pickup trucks. We're helpless to do anything about this." I failed to check to see whether the trucks had Maine plates. They didn't look like typical customers of this hotel. Around Portland things are a bit better. And new stations are being put it. It's just behind neighboring states.
ghaff 3y ago
Probably some combination of: - It's a cold state in winter and there's at least the perception that you don't want an EV in places with cold winters. (I see few enough Teslas in the wild in exurban Boston.) - It's a relatively poor state. - I imagine pickups and the like are disproportionately represented. - It's big and sparsely populated as you say. A friend of mine who lives in Boston but owns a house on a bunch of land in northern Vermont finally got a Tesla when he convinced himself there was sufficient buffer for weekly trips between the two places.

My brother lives in Maine and has two electric cars. I have one and travel in Maine a few times a year. It's a particularly bad state for charging. I'm not sure why that is.

gnicholas 3y ago

I imagine the temperature doesn't help. Compared to CA (where the columnist is from), the average temp is probably 20° colder, which could cut 15% off the range.

samatman 3y ago
This is unlikely to be the central factor, given that Norway, one of the few inhabited places which is colder than Maine, has the highest rate of electric car ownership in the world. That's in spite of the range issue, and is due to the Norwegian government carrot-and-sticking heavily towards electric. Maine has no such incentives, and is sparsely populated, which doesn't play to the strengths of electric cars.
- DFHippie 3y ago
  Maine is sparsely populated, but most of its population is concentrated in a narrow strip along the coast. Actually, this is probably true of Norway as well.
- joncrocks 3y ago
  Also worth noting that in Norway, they will often have cars with engine block heaters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_heater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_heater), with associated plug points in parking spaces/places. Makes it much easier if there's already infrastructure.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Norway has huge financial incentives for buying EVs, including exemption from VAT and registration fees. This has added up to billions of USD in subsidies, [1] and is why there are so many EVs in Norway. I'd be very surprised if their neighbors, who have similar climate but fewer incentives, see the same rate of adoption. Norway shows that you can have EVs in a place that is very cold if you shovel cash at buyers. It doesn't prove that weather wouldn't be a central factor in a place like Maine. 1: https://www.oecd.org/climate-action/ipac/practices/norway-s-evolving-incentives-for-zero-emission-vehicles-22d2485b/ https://www.oecd.org/climate-action/ipac/practices/norway-s-...
DFHippie 3y ago
Yeah, the cold hurts the range, but not all that much. The central (I was going to say "main") thing is that Maine is a charging desert. Bar Harbor, the destination of most of the out-of-state Teslas, has almost nowhere to charge. I went to a hotel once which promised to have 4 level-2 Tesla chargers. All of the spots were occupied by ICE trucks. I went in to point out this problem to the clerk. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "they're probably our customers." Apparently the chargers were just there to lure in suckers. "Yes, we have chargers, but good luck using one. They tend to be parked in by ICE pickup trucks. We're helpless to do anything about this." I failed to check to see whether the trucks had Maine plates. They didn't look like typical customers of this hotel. Around Portland things are a bit better. And new stations are being put it. It's just behind neighboring states.

ghaff 3y ago

Probably some combination of: - It's a cold state in winter and there's at least the perception that you don't want an EV in places with cold winters. (I see few enough Teslas in the wild in exurban Boston.) - It's a relatively poor state. - I imagine pickups and the like are disproportionately represented. - It's big and sparsely populated as you say. A friend of mine who lives in Boston but owns a house on a bunch of land in northern Vermont finally got a Tesla when he convinced himself there was sufficient buffer for weekly trips between the two places.