If you live in an area that has the EV infrastructure and support then an EV might be an ok ride. Once you are away from these areas driving an EV would be a process of finding chargers and waiting in line occasionally. You were the person that brought up the abundant resources available to the EV driver, not me. I showed you a map of gas stations that show what the EV infrastructure will need to replace if everything goes EV. Do you really think that is going to happen ? There is no way forward with home chargers to the extent of replacing gas because there just isn't enough electricity generation.
With Tesla, there's no process of finding chargers, and with most other BEVs today, you simply enter your destination into the navigation, and it automagically routes you to chargers as part of the navigation. There's no "finding chargers", and outside of heavily urban areas with unusual EV density per capita (which is the exception not the rule), there's no waiting for chargers either. More internet talking points from a skeptic really. I've literally
never arrived at a L3 SC station where every stall was in use. For the most part, they are nearly empty in point of fact, or there's 1-3 cars at most at an 8+ stall location. That's my real world experience after 1.5 years of ownership taking no less than 20 road trips varying from 120-600 miles each direction.
The electricity generation issue will solve itself over time, the market will solve this problem just like it always does. Do you really think there were 145k gas stations on day one when ICE vehicles first started becoming popular? The infrastructure will be built out as needed as EV marketshare increases.
Ev's are always going to be a niche product because there will never be an adequate amount of electricity for everyone to have an EV, there will never be enough infrastructure for ev's and the costs are way more than the fuel savings. People in high fuel states like them because it cuts out the costs of fuel but these savings are usually lost in the depreciation of the EV as ev's are almost considered disposable at this time , the costs of insurance and there is a cost associated with the time it takes to actually charge an EV.
If a person only spent one hour a month on their EV , what is that hour worth ? Considering that the amount of an EV owners paycheck might be higher than average, that one hour might be worth $65 to $120 when pay , taxes and benefits are included.
I guess only time will tell, but I'd bet dollars to donuts it will be up around 40-50% by 2030 - I'd hardly say that's a niche product - and as autonomous driving takes hold later this decade - personal vehicle ownership will start to decline rapidly especially in more urban and suburban areas. Given 95% of all miles driven are from daily usage, your statement that there's a time cost to charging falls flat on it's face given home charging occurs overnight and there's literally zero time cost associated with home charging. As wireless charging takes hold, coupled with self driving, even if you don't have a home charger - the vehicle will drive and charge itself overnight and return to your home all without any human intervention. The only time cost associated with charging is on road trips - and my real world experience has shown me there's no appreciable time difference between ICE and BEV on longer road trips. We drive 550-600 miles each way to Myrtle beach every year for our family vacations. The best time I've ever experienced in our 2018 RAM 1500 was nine hours. Last year we took our BEV, and it took nine hours - including charging.
Tesla just announced the V4 Supercharger cabinets - the V4 stalls have already come to market and have been installed across all of the newer sites since earlier this year. I have two V4 stall locations within a few miles of my house now (both are at Wawa's). The V4 cabinets are a big deal because they bring true 350-500kw charging capability for 800v architecture EVs. At 500kw charging with an 800v architecture, this has the potential to be game changing for charging times. If the new Juniper MY due to be introduced next year here in the US comes with an 800v architecture that supports up to 500kw charging, that would likely bring a 20-80% charge time to eight minutes flat, possibly even a 15-85% charge session - maybe 10 minutes max. That's about half of the current charging session time of 16-20 minutes. Will Tesla bring 800v architecture to the MY? Hard to say. Right now the Cybertruck is the
only vehicle in their lineup with this architecture (though the Tesla Semi is rumored to have this architecture already). The newly refreshed Highland M3 introduced late last year is still on a 400v architecture, so I'd estimate about a 50/50 chance Tesla will actually do this, but fingers crossed that they actually do introduce 800v architecture on the Juniper MY - if so - it's a big deal for roadtripping especially, and partially alleviates volume concerns with the install base for charge stalls over time (since charge stall average turnover time would decrease significantly).
The other issue is most drivers in the USA like larger vehicles with more room than the average EV provides. The only times I ever drive a dinky car is when I rent one on our trips.
Was this the case back in the 1970s/1980s? Trends change, and they will change again as people continue to become more energy conscious.
Other reasons of ownership besides costs that are reported by EV buyers are they just like the look and can afford the perceived influence owning an EV may provides, their politics or an environmental issue which are all valid enough reasons, but after all is said, it's still an EV.
Bill
Yeah, ok, more internet talking points as opposed to real world experience yet again.
