Claims that electric vehicles don't have enough demand may be overblown.
A new study from GBK Collective, published Thursday, found that half of the more than 2,000 US car consumers they interviewed were considering either an electric or a hybrid car for their next vehicle purchase.
This far outweighs the current ownership trends found in the study. Only 14% of those surveyed already own a plug-in or hybrid vehicle of some kind. It's another piece of evidence of a huge opportunity for EV manufacturers to home in on the needs of these green car-curious consumers.
"These are not the same kind of customers who created the initial EV market," GBK President Jeremy Korst told Business Insider in an interview.
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"These are later adopters, and because of that, they're not as driven by innovation or even design," Korst said. "They have more functional needs, and they're much more pragmatic and thinking about the total cost of ownership both in price and in effort, like, 'how do I charge so what's that going to take? How much time is it going to take me?'"
I go on road trips for vacation. like 700+ miles in the day road trips. I wouldn't consider an ev right now because I have range anxiety and charging stations aren't as ubiquitous in the rural areas. if you stuck charge stations at every rest area on the interstates (the ones some states haven't closed yet), I dunno maybe but there are still big stretches of land out there that aren't close to an interstate let alone a rest area.
give me an ev that can go 700 miles in 12 hours and I might consider it.
This sounds doable for a lot of EVs these days. Some apps that have been helpful have been "A Better Route Planner" (directions and optimized stops across all major brands of chargers), and "Plug Share" (reviews and status updates of chargers across all major brands).
Here's a good video of an EV road trip if you're interested: https://youtu.be/1Vm_ASm2zfs?si=I5tAJy1m2MprIVgo
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Yeah, the range capabilities and charging options are improving very quickly.
the only quibble I would make about the video is they made a road trip 100% east of the mississippi where there's a lot of people and opportunities to put in charging stations. my opinion, it was a weighted test. where they made their second stop is literally right across the bridge from my hometown, and I know of at least 2 fast charge stations they easily could have made on the charge they had left if the one they used was unavailable. I would have been more impressed if they went west.
Usually, you stop more often and charge for less time per charge, even if you can make it to another charger. Charging slows down as the battery gets “full”, so you get more charge per minute at the low end of the battery capacity and it slows as its charge percentage rises. I only charge up to 80-85% if I’m plugged in overnight. I try to operate in 10-60%.
I usually drive about 2-3 hours and stop for half an hour to charge. If you run the battery down to 15-20%, you can charge up to 60% in about 15-20 minutes… I tend to give it a little extra if I’m eating lunch or there is a park near the charger. I made it from Houston to Winter Park, Colorado over 2 days with a free charge overnight at a hotel. In 15 hrs of driving, there were about 4 hours of charging spread out to about 4 per day. If you’re in a big hurry, it’s not great. But I don’t really like driving for more than about 10 hrs in a day, so it works for me.
When I had a commute for work, I had a charger at the house. That was awesome. I never had to stop for a charge, never had any maintenance issues… I just drove it and plugged it in at home every few days. EVs aren’t for everyone… especially if you commute more than 200 miles a day and don’t have a place to charge at home, but I’m never going back to an ICE vehicle.
If you take one or two vacations a year, rent an ICE for the trip.
Our last car was 12 years old and we did a 2,800km trip in a rental because we didn't want to run the risk of breakdown in the middle of nowhere.
every time I've taken a road trip (12 times) it's always been in a rental mainly out of necessity. I don't have anything against rentals, I'd just rather save an expense when I can.
Yeah, road trips are supposed to be cheap. But if you're already using rentals for long trips, that's one less problem with EVs. Price on the other hand...
700 miles in 12 hours isn’t even 60 miles/hour. I’m pretty sure every EV on the market that isn’t a golf cart can do that.
With you stopping to charge for an extra 3-5 hours.
I've done this with my EV and while it's kind of fun, it is still a ton of added time.
My Ioniq 5 did a 12 hour drive over the holidays and only needed about 1.5 hours of total charge time
Fair. I have a 2020 Hyundai Kona AV with a smidge less range.