It’s a shame that the US and Canada are lagging behind. I get that politicians want to protect the fossil fuel industry and slow-to-adapt domestic automakers, but consumers and the environment suffer instead.
It's interesting to see the way politics influences public opinion which in turn influences manufacturers, which in turn influence politics.
In Europe EV's have a positive political support, which means lots of sales, which means "all" European manufacturers have solid (and improving) offerings.
By contrast the biggest EV manufacturer is politically toxic to the very people likely to buy it. And oil companies lobby hard to keep anti-EV talking points alive. Which drives sales down, and manufacturers drop EVs from the range. Banning competition doesn't seem to help with making progress.
And yes, I get the "Europe short distances" argument, but how many Americans are really driving 300+ miles every day?
So, 20 years from now, will US manufacturers exist? Or will products from Asia and Europe be too far ahead?
>And yes, I get the "Europe short distances" argument, but how many Americans are really driving 300+ miles every day?
Everyday? probably not many, but 300+ in a single day several times a year, well I bet it is quite a few. Visiting relatives at Thanksgiving and other holidays, summer vacations, sure some people take airplanes, but most aren't that well off. And if you have children visiting aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents, the only place I'd want to do a 40 minute charge for the next leg is maybe Buc-ees, which is in a pretty small part of the country.
Will this take me and my family where we need to go is a more important consideration than the daily commute for me, but perhaps that is not as common a sentiment.
> but 300+ in a single day several times a year, well I bet it is quite a few.
And this hasn't been a problem in an EV for years. That's a single charge for almost all EVs now. And with fast chargers being almost everywhere, especially along highways, I doubt the actual time taken is very different.
If you don't take a single ~20 minute break in a 5 hour drive, you can beat it. I'm not sure that's healthy or safe though. If you have children this isn't even an option IMHO.
> Will this take me and my family where we need to go is a more important consideration than the daily commute
Totally your decision obviously. It's also why you see so many trucks and all terrain vehicles drive around for the 1 time a year that might be useful. The rest of the year you just pay for that in gas/maintenance/parking ease etc. Again, your decision and I'm not saying you should change, just playing Devils advocate
Charging, for me at least, is usually a 10-15 minute affair which is faster than my family can use a washroom and stretch our legs. Several road trips per year in an EV is painless.
Towing things long distances is one of the few EV weak points I can think of, but REV trucks should mostly fix that too.
I do this frequently. A 15 minute stop for a biobreak and a takeaway coffee usually adds 100 miles or so on a modern EV and fast charger.
It's really not much (if any) inconvenience. If in a gas car you assume you are going to stop to take a piss and grab a drink or a snack or something anyway during the course of a long 300+ mile drive (very likely I'd say, unless you and your passengers are urinating into bottles), you'd still need to stop for gas at some point too when with an EV you are actually spending less time since it's "filling up" while you are in the line waiting for your skinny latte. You don't have to do all that then also stop to grab gas too, because your car filled up without you.
You don't need a 40 minute change. My Ioniq 5 will go from 30% to 85% in 20 minutes. On road trips I'm usually in and out in about 15 minutes which is aligned with my stop time with my ICE car. Why would you limit yourself to stopping at a single vendor like Buc-ee's? My EV is the best roadtripping car I've ever owned. It's a superior car, and it "refuels" quickly.
So stop at a supercharger once or twice a week on your way wherever. Im sure there's time in your week where you are mindlessly scrolling. Do that while charging instead of at home.
Sure that works, but now you have a worse version of the refueling experience you'd have with a gas car. Significantly slower for comparable prices and superchargers are still much less common than gas stations. Very tolerable on an occasion road trip. Less than ideal for everyday use.
Do a few 500km trips in Sweden per year. We have lots of fast chargers so mostly not an issue, quick coffee/bathroom break, like 20 min is enough. Only time it was a bit of an issue was when it was minus 30c, had to wait 20 minutes for a charger where they didn't have many.
Not sure I see your point. That seems to be based almost entirely on Japan’s population crisis; Japan has lots of trains and fewer and fewer people regularly using them due to age. Simply irrelevant for just about anywhere else (except parts of Eastern Europe, maybe).
Japan didn't have a population crisis when they started building their train networks. Every Western country will have its own population crisis in the coming years. Long-term planning is crucial because train infrastructure is more permanent than other transportation infrastructure.
There are plenty of non-Tesla options available. The market in the US was already on the decline and then the federal incentive got pulled and demand has really stalled.
Speaking as a EV driver myself, the charging network in the US is really lacking. Charging times are fine but the ease of finding an unnocupied and working charger that you can drive up to and start charging quickly still too difficult.
Maybe reasons like this make people not desire EVs:
But with winter right around the corner, owners are worried that the cold weather. The ID.4 Pro S AWD is rated for 263 miles of EPA range in ideal conditions. The 20% hit to the battery likely brings real-world range below 200 miles, and actual winter condition tests show that the ID.4 loses up 37% of its range in the cold—ouch.
https://insideevs.com/news/812129/vw-id4-charge-limit-80/
Yes, me and all the others are worried that our daily 200km commute in -40 Degrees will not be feasible.
I mean, seriously, it's a small inconvenience once you realize you don't need a huge range in your daily life. I do wish my EV had a longer range, but I get over 300km on a charge and it's more than enough for everyday use.
I believe you're misunderstanding OPs point. I read it as saying North Americans drive 200+ miles at once more often than Europeans, and so it makes sense that EV adoption would lag in North America given that.
200+ miles is quite optimistic. On a bad day it's more like 130 miles, and a significant minority of americans drive 130 miles a day. I love my EV but my wife might refuse to buy another one for exactly this reason. A 250 mile range is more like 200 miles in cold weather(and that's what I see in florida so that's probably a best case). And at 85mph(what people are actually driving on the highway) it's more like 150 miles(mi/kwh really falls off a cliff over 60ish mph). And you don't want risk running out of battery just before you destination, so make that 130miles even with a dangerously small margin for error. That's 1.5 hours at highway speed in the winter. And chargers are 20-40 minutes apart and may not work(again florida so "good" charger availability...I've seen 1hr+ apart in new hampshire). So if you hit a bad charger you're potentially stranded.
Our EV is great for normal use, but my wife had to do a 200 mile round trip once a week for a couple months(not anticipated when we bought it). She quickly went from loving her fancy new car to wanting to sell that annoying POS. A faster charger plus extended range battery would have helped some(Chevy Bolt is weak on both) but it is honestly a pain point for the kind of trip many americans do somewhat regularly.
Small landlords also rent out basement suites and carriage homes on their own property, no? Those may very well sit empty if the return isn’t worth the risk.
Editing to just add: I absolutely support transparent pricing for rental properties.
Same. Siri has been so bad for so long, and this announcement gave me a brief glimmer of hope that it would finally get better. However, every phone in my family is a 15 or older, and there is no support for our newer HomePod either. Boooooo Apple, booooo.
reply