Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

But again, concerns over range are really just a type of concern over public charging capacity.

If the people who drive those roads regularly can charge on public chargers, then people driving through on long trips also have the ability to charge there. Thus range isn't a concern.

Leak down test, oil pressure, opening the filler cap for blow by, sound... Plenty of accessible options there that will diagnose a bad bottom-end or piston rings. Further, your average Joe can replace crank bearings in an afternoon and many could re-ring an engine with some help from youtube. Your average Honda will need this once every 200-400k miles (14-25 average 14k driving years) with proper oil changes.

There are a lot more components (cells) in a battery pack than rotating components in an average engine. I'm unsure if they're generally individually addressable, but I know they're not designed to be serviced at the cell level. That has you replacing the battery pack any time there is a problem, a many thousands of dollars adventure just in parts. There's also no major differentiator from a software perspective between "the battery is old and has reduced capacity" and "the battery is swelling and has reduced capacity". The latter could lead without warning to a catastrophic failure that would make a ringland failure laughable.

I do appreciate your view is held by many consumers who purchase a new or certified pre-owned car every N years. For those in lower income brackets (including most countries in the world) or who like to buy things that last, electric cars don't seem to carry a huge value proposition over a traditional ICE car.

Tangentially gas cars are convenient because you just don't have to think about the length of your next trip: there will be gas available wherever you go. Long trips with an EV require planning due to missing infrastructure, longer "fueling" times, and shorter ranges.

But if we break out off the assumption that you can go anywhere any time in your electric car because there's another option available (rental? ride sharing? public transportation?) and EVs are at least for now meant for shorter trips then it becomes less of an issue.

But you're right - the freedom to just hop in an EV and go isn't here yet. I look forward to when it is. Can't come soon enough for me.

Well yes and solar isn’t a great solution for arctic areas in the winter. There’s rarely a single blanket solution that works everywhere.

The major problems with EV that will keep me from buying one in the foreseeable future are:

* Low range, combined with a lackluster charging infrastructure. I think from my list this is the closest issue to being resolved, if I could consistantly get 800km range (in real world usage, not "800km in the brochure but actually 400km in real life") it would be fine because (1) with such a long range the risk of having to recharge multiple time on a single journey is fairly small, thus reducing the inconvenience [assuming one can charge at home or work, otherwise recharging will always be a pain in the butt regardless of how you look at it] (2) it's enough to cross "charging station deserts", areas where inevitably there will be little to no charging infrastructure (see the charging stations on french highways for reference, recharging is just as expensive as refueling and the charging stations don't even work reliably).

* A large segment of the EV market is made of cars that remind me more of technological gadgets than proper vehicules. I have very little patience to deal with technology and I certainly don't want my car to be basically a software platform. I shouldn't get angry before bed time but I'm still going to mention the privacy aspect of it. Having SIM cards embedded in every car is bad enough already but at least with the more traditional "analog" cars you can give the manufacturer the benefit of the doubt that the SIM card is only activated in case of accident. Most EV cars lift the doubt by collecting analytics and installing software updates remotely. One day there will be a data breach and everywhere you've ever been with your car will be free for the general public to see. Even worse, a malicious actor gets a hold of the manufacturer's private key and can push arbitrary updates to your car.

* Most charging networks (I'm tempted to say "all" because I've never seen an instance where it wasn't the case, but again let's give the benefit of the doubt) are basically spying networks that require an account and a credit card to use. Someone (everybody once there's a data breach) knows everytime/everywhere you recharge your car, how much you used since your last charge, etc. Why can't we just pay cash for, say, $10 worth of electricity just as we do with ICE cars?

I believe the first point will be solved in a relatively near future because it's mostly a matter of improving the technology a bit (or paying more for a bigger battery). For the two last points however I only see things getting worse since the current trend is to go further and further in this "everything as a digital service" direction.