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Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

businessinsider.com

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Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#881

Post by s0rce »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #877

Article is spot on about the problems, but as much as I'm a huge fan of European style mass transit, we really need to let go of the idea of "push more public transportation" as some sort of solution in the U.S. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. The US as a country has for the past 100 years been built around cars, both in cities and rural areas, and it would probably take another 100 years to change that if there was even t…

Didn't major European cities manage to pivot away from some pretty major car centric design effectively...

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#882

Post by tines »

pwthornton wrote: post #878
atestu wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

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.

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.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#883

Post by scarby2 »

atestu wrote: post #664
outlace wrote: post #627

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 pla…

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 m…

>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).

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#884

Post by iamthirsty »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #877

Article is spot on about the problems, but as much as I'm a huge fan of European style mass transit, we really need to let go of the idea of "push more public transportation" as some sort of solution in the U.S. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. The US as a country has for the past 100 years been built around cars, both in cities and rural areas, and it would probably take another 100 years to change that if there was even t…

> IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN

It could happen, it would just require such a massive shift in current attitudes and regulation that it's not very likely.

> So whatever solutions we implement need to just accept that fact; it's fanciful and counter-productive otherwise.

Discussion is almost never counter-productive. I would highly advise against trying to reduce the amount of discussion (in general and on this issue.)

It's not a fact that it won't happen because it is technically possible, and there is a large portion of people pushing for it, and it's expanding in cities like Miami (where I live), Florida in general, Texas, etc.

Ironically, with enough discussion anything is possible, including a massive shift to public transport in the U.S.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#885

Post by insane_dreamer »

atestu wrote: post #664
outlace wrote: post #627

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 pla…

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 m…

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.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#886

Post by Solvency »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #867

The article nails it really. The core problem here is that a small minded swap from ICE to EV is only a mild implementation improvement on top of an already fragile transportation system that is riddled with problems. The government could really get the ball rolling by incentivizing a switch further by by adding more stick along with the current carrots, adding a carbon tax to make ICE vehicles less appealing, but th…

Our entire approach to town and city building is fucked. People/professionals all vacation to places like Tulum (etc) where you can just walk through little slices of paradise on foot (or scooter) and reach everything you need sans car, rave about how great it is, and then go back home and continue designing and building the worst imaginable human experience infrastructure.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#887

Post by munificent »

> Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driving needs, it struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge. Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars, this seems like a failure; an EV should be able to do everything a gas car can. This idea persists even though in 2023 the average US driver traveled only about 40 miles a day, and in 2022 about 93% of US trips were less than 30 miles. Still, in a survey conducted by Ipsos last fall, 73% of respondents indicated they had concerns about EV range.

It's entirely true that an EV will work perfectly fine for 90%+ of the drives a typical person in the US makes. Logically, the right solution is to buy an EV for commutes and errands, and rent a gas engine car for road trips.

But the result of that logic is asking people to make one of the most expensive purchases of their life where:

1. They will only use it do things they don't enjoy: driving to work and running errands.

2. They won't get to use it for the things they do enjoy about that product category: road trips, camping, vacations, etc.

Logical or not, it's a psychologically shitty deal. Especially when you compare it to gas vehicles where you can use the same vehicle for both the fun and unfun stuff (at some loss of efficiency and environmental value). So at least when you're stuck in traffic on your horrific work commute, you're in a vehicle that pleasantly reminds you of your awesome camping trip last week.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#888

Post by mathgradthrow »

There is a best of both worlds option, in theory, which is a car with a much smaller battery than can still be fully electric for a commute.

We're wasting our battery capacity on cars anyway. Grid storage is much more important, and cars have the worst possible power demands for use with batteries.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#889

Post by parineum »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #879
outlace wrote: post #627

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 pla…

> 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)

Adapters are incredibly annoying.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#890

Post by s0rce »

arbitrary_name wrote: post #824
atestu wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

>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.

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.
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