The issue I see on the map is chargers on route, but none where I'm at. Say that I'm visiting my parents, the nearest level 2 charger is 32 miles away, 37 miles if I don't feel like sitting in BMW's parking lot waiting 2 hours for my car to recharge. So rather than fuel up and be able to go days (450miles to a tank) after leaving the last town, I have to constantly find the charger. Using an example of the Bolt, at 4 miles per hour at 110V charging (all that's available at their house) our typical daily trips in the country would have to be no more than 30 miles, leaving 6 miles of padding. Otherwise we have to waste a trip driving 37 miles somewhere so the car can sit and charge for several hours, and then drive it 37 miles back home, leaving just under 200 miles left on the "tank". It could be done, but it'd have to be watched constantly. Also would have to plan your day sitting in some Florida town waiting on the thing to charge again.
No one is arguing that EVs are suitable for everyone today. But how do you think that Charger Map will look in 10 years, and 20 years from now?
The charging network just isn't there yet.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/henry-payne/2017/09/12/payne-charging/105552126/
Only thing that would make me wary about the used market for a while is water damaged cars making their way into it like they did after Sandy and Katrina. Fraud was pretty rampant.
The charging situation is far larger than you care to look at it, and all anyone has mentioned so far is "I have another car." That goes back to my definition of a toy. You have a car that you can't even travel with because it doesn't go far enough in a charge, that's a toy. If I could charge everyday at work or home I would have an EV instead of considering a Prius C.
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you make valid points. but i would turn it around and say that the EV as the daily driver is not the toy. the toy is the ICE that is infrequently used and only comes out for those long trips.
and not all EV owners also "have another car". some have suggested that they can get by with just an EV and rent an ICE for specific, infrequent purposes.
Also, in spite of what he seems to think most households have more than one car.
So 'having another car' is not an excuse to justify EV ownership, it's just reality for close to 2/3 of US households.
Viper GTS
I agree it's not a car to take whenever you want but if an EV covers either person's needs 99% of the time (which is extremely likely) the odds of an EV + ICE vehicle household encountering a day that can't be completed with the vehicles they have is exceedingly unlikely. I have four cars in my household and already routinely do this. Daily vehicle use is determined by weather, driving range, package carrying needs, etc. It's really not hard.
For what it's worth I'm going through this kind of math myself right now. My wife wants a Tesla. I can't currently charge it at home (rental) and she occasionally needs to drive hundreds of miles in a single day. I've started collecting the daily trip data to get an idea of exactly how many days per year she'd have to drive something else if she had an entry model S or X but my initial estimate is she'd need more range 2-3 days a year. So even with a very travel heavy job over a large service area she's looking at conservatively 98% or better coverage. And that's completely ignoring the supercharger network which we'd have to use anyway since I can't currently charge at home.
Viper GTS
Indeed, in my household the wife actually uses her car. So it's not a second car just to take whenever I want.
Again, all you are doing is arguing vociferously that an EV won't work for you.
So what? It doesn't have to.
Probably close to half of new car sales could go EV, even at current infrastructure levels. Most homes in the USA are single family detached, meaning they could fairly easily add a level 2 charger at home. Most are also multi-car meaning there is backup for road trips.
So there is massive potential before we even get to the infrastructure issues.
Which is why I think the big tipping point is simply getting the purchase price down to equality. At that point the economics greatly favor EVs and the switch-over become an avalanche.
Sure half the population may be out of the loop until infrastructure changes to support them, but the first big wave of will drive more infrastructure development, which opens the EV market to the next cohort, which drives the next wave of infrastructure, and so on...
Because the infrastructure isn't there for half! We have brownouts in the north east because it gets of 90 degrees lol. But yeah we'll add half (8 million) cars to the power grid tomorrow.
What EVs have 30 mile battery packs?
You are pretty much trolling in your posts at this point. Your post are mostly FUD and Strawman arguments you construct.
Just because half the market could use an EV, they aren't going to switch overnight, it just means there are a huge potential market, and we have a LONG time before we have to be concerned about exceptions such as yourself that can't/won't buy. Those cases are simply irrelevant because there are millions of low hanging fruit that can be addressed first.
But even addressing the low hanging fruit will take decades and the grid will adapt as EVs gradually roll out.
Mostly affordable plugables like the Cmax. Obviously a Bolt will get a week except in winter.
Charging can be done without wires even, but wires and not a real bottleneck yet to the charge rates.At some point you hit the limit of how much energy you can pass through reasonably sized wiring no matter how fast the battery/capacitor itself can take a charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCVyIcnh2BE