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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

#941

Post by Symbiote »

donatj wrote: post #542
pornel wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are outdoor chargers, if you have a driveway. Also note that in city/commute use BEV needs to be charged about once a week, not every night.

I’ve thought about that. There is a fence immediately right of my driveway and an alley immediately left. I have very little space to install any sort of pole, and as I live in Minnesota, what little space I do have is needed badly for snow storage. It’s already a problem, last winter the snow was stacked above 6 feet either side. The left side of my garage potentially has room for a charger to be mounted to the face…

A high quality normal extension cord is fine in Europe, even if it's 20m or more.

I don't know about 120V use, but I assume you'd use 240V for a new socket anyway.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#942

Post by apitman »

agloe_dreams wrote: post #784
apitman wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "I want a pickup" idea does not tickle the same brain cells as the "I want an EV" idea. Very anecdotal but I disagree. My dream vehicle might be a hybrid pickup that sacrifices the frunk for an ICE that can give me much greater range if needed, while still having a full size battery I can use for around town and camping. Also, EV pickups are basically the perfect work truck for people using plug-in power tools.…

Dodge is building this for you next year - it is called the Ramcharger. It is a 190mi EV with a v6 generator for an added 400 miles of gas range.

Actually looks pretty dang close. Thanks for sharing

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#943

Post by jstarfish »

christiangenco wrote: post #778
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…

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.…

> For my wife it's also a low-level danger: women find gas stations spooky, apparently

Parking lots are dangerous for women, yes. Purse-snatchers and carjackers exist. They all insist on carrying expensive iPhones that can be fenced, so there goes calling for help. Vehicles themselves are mobile rape cabins (ask Uber) and corpse storage lockers. It's a very vulnerable position for women.

But if your wife thinks a 2-minute refuel at a gas station is bad, wait'll she has to recharge the EV while out and about and can't make it to Walmart.

Some of those recharging lots make illicit gay cruising spots feel like Disney World-- we're talking an empty parking lot in a wooded area behind an office building after-hours, with nobody around to hear you scream.

I don't feel comfortable sitting around there.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#944

Post by caconym_ »

natch wrote: post #705
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…

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 usua…

> 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.

Huh? On what basis do you believe EVs on the market today are safer than their ICE counterparts?

https://www.iihs.org/ratings/top-safety-picks

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#945

Post by vel0city »

bluGill wrote: post #923
vel0city wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like the fact it takes a few minutes to refuel my car I guarantee you spend more time fueling your ICE than I do my EV in a given year.

I'm not sure. How long does it take you to plug in and unplug every day? Sure it is only a few seconds, but those add up. The ICE is a few minutes every week or two.

I don't plug in every day, only a couple of times a week.

So maybe 20-30 seconds total every week or two. Compared to 5+ minutes every week or two, which is how long I spend with my ICE. That's at least 10x longer.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#946

Post by iamleppert »

vel0city wrote: post #695
iamleppert wrote: post #534

Until they can produce an EV that doesn’t feel like a massive downgrade in connvience, performance, cost, basically all the ways normal people measure the decision of buying a car, I’m not sold. I like the fact it takes a few minutes to refuel my car, and it’s the same process regardless if I’m traveling 5 miles or 500. I don’t need to deal with charging stations, and if I run out of gas I can take a gas can to the c…

> I like the fact it takes a few minutes to refuel my car I guarantee you spend more time fueling your ICE than I do my EV in a given year.

Have you stopped to consider that I don’t have a garage? That many, many drivers don’t have a private garage and their own EV charger? Basically anyone who lives in a regular apartment doesn’t have a garage and thus can’t charge their car at night.

If EVs are to succeed they need to work for the masses as good or better than what we have now. Not just your rich techie with a Tesla parked in their private garage in Palo Alto.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#947

Post by GnarfGnarf »

camel_gopher wrote: post #64
rappatic wrote: post #60

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > 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 per…

Sounds like the use case is perfect for a hybrid which does 30 miles electric.

The hybrids are still saddled with all the reasons to ditch ICE and go EV: pistons, spark plugs, crankshaft, fuel pump, oil pan & pump, radiator, water pump, distributor, valves, timing belt, fuel injection, transmission, god it's a miracle that stuff ever worked :o)

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#948

Post by ghiculescu »

lagadu wrote: post #715
ghiculescu wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do Australians think EV chargers should be provided by government? Petrol stations aren’t.

Because investing in infrastructure (of many types) often carries with it capital expenses and have low returns that are unbearable for most potential market players but once in place allow the provisioning of services who are very useful to the population. In this case, nobody was going to build EV chargers if there were no EVs on the road and nobody would buy an EV if there were no chargers on the road. Stepping in…

But people have bought EVs despite the lack of public chargers, both in Australia and all over the world, so that’s clearly not the full story.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#949

Post by sokoloff »

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.

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.

Re: Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US

#950

Post by pedalpete »

Schiendelman wrote: post #615
pedalpete wrote: post #164

I'm surprised nobody is pointing out the chasm. EVs have so far captured the market for early adopters. The range limitations, early teething problems, and just lack of comfort of understanding how they work (is it on, is it not on, how far can I go, etc etc) only appeals to the early adopters. My proof point in this is when I was renting an EV at Hertz a few weeks ago. The couple next to me were trying out an EV for…

I don’t think I’m aware of any EV that doesn’t have a button on the trunk. What model was it?

Holy crap, you're right. It was a Polestar 2, and none of us could find the button.

Apparently, it's below the license plate, which is WAY down for someone to go looking for the button.

There is also a button on the keyfob, and so I thought that was the way it was supposed to be opened.

https://help.getgo.sg/en/articles/8446548-how-do-i-open-the-...

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