Futurology

And we are going to look back in ten years and realize that a ton of it was big oil misinformation about EV utility.

Right now, an EV will add around 10 minutes of travel time per 300 miles over an average gas vehicle, and that's if you are really working hard to minimize stopping time on the ICEV. For most people who can charge at home, this means they will save far more time by not visiting a gas station every two weeks than they will lose on occasional road trips.

Yet if you go to any discussion on the internet, you will see tons of the same shit where people have this mistaken idea that their one 5+ hour trip per year somehow prevents them from having an EV.

I have a PHEV, a 2021 Seat Leon PHEV FR, it's brilliant!

I can go 60km on a fully charged battery on smaller, more interesting roads, on motorways it gets me about 35-40km on a fully charged battery.

This is with the AC going during summer.

If I stick it into hybrid mode it uses about 3.9L/100km, or if you want MPG I get about 60.3 of those.

PHEVs are brilliant and often overlooked.

I feel like they are missing a bit. Most people don’t buy brand new cars. You have to be solidly “middle class” to have that on the table. I am the target consumer and they are completely missing me. I have a family. My wife and I both work. I have a small gas truck that is our all-in-one family vehicle. She has an eco box for commuting. Most potential customers already have a big gas truck or SUV. An EV would be their second car for work commuting. They are not selling that. They are trying to sell EVs as all-in-one replacements for gas cars when really they should be designed and marketed as supplements to the car you already have. What ends up happening is customers “settle” for hybrids. The focus on charging difficulty is misplaced. In general, people who live in apartments don’t buy brand new vehicles. At least that’s what I think.

The article touches on many topics.

I agree that the people living in apartments have a difficult charging situation which is the main hurdle for the transition to EVs. However, IMO this is only a small part of a much larger problem that has little to do with EVs: The idea of using public parking as a permanent solution. Adding more public chargers will not solve it.

I do find it strange that cities allow unrestricted public parking. I can't think of any other private object that you can simply place in public space and then expect it to be safe and charged when you return. Of course there should be public parking, but it ought be time restricted, so that people who buy a car also need to figure out where they're going to store it themselves. It's really not an issue for the city to solve.

It does appear to me that more and more new apartments and condos have private parking, or that car owners in cities rent a parking lot to avoid circling the block for a vacant spot or to keep their vehicle safe. It will solve the charging issue for a lot of the people in apartments when those parking lots get chargers. This will take time because renters or owners need to agree on getting chargers or allow for individuals to set them up and parking garages need to have a business case in doing it.

With working places and schools etc. also installing chargers, it also reduces the number of people who are entirely dependent on public chargers. The issue might not be as bad as it is often presented.

Public chargers really ought only be for long distance travelling or quick on-the-go charging, not a permanent solution for people who don't their own parking spot. I don't mind people using public chargers like that, but it just isn't a good solution for them either to drive somewhere to charge every time. That really makes life more difficult than it has to be and IMO the very idea is a remainder of ICE cars.

Anyway, Tesla losing shares of the market may be a good thing in this, because their solution of having all Teslas drive to Tesla's chargers is just keeping people dependent on "going to the gas station". It's a waste of time and milage in comparison to setting up chargers where people already park.