Yet I do believe the 200+ mile range and price will get enough people in one and really start to shift the EV from being an early adopter accessory to a viable everyday car.
Good on ya, GM.
My apartment building has two EV charging stations (always taken) and my work has 9 (always taken).
I don't think vehicle technology or execution has been the limiting factor for a while.
200mi+ is the threshold that will make a lot of people feel completely comfortable using an EV day-in and day-out.
Charging stations will go up when EV sales go up--this will help.
People vastly overestimate how far they drive regularly, or even ever. It really is a mental thing.
What's the cost of a one-time 30m wait to refuel instead of a 5m wait? I think it'd be far less than the benefit of no refueling wait the other 364 days of the year.
Also, the cost isn't infinite. If you were, for instance, totally unable to drive the electric car to the ski hill for your vacation you could rent another car, so worst-case you're out like $200 which is far less than you'd save in fuel the rest of the year.
Most people simply get stuck on the costs instead of being able to amortize them across the whole period and weigh them against the benefits.
I don't own a car at all currently (bus+bike+lyft/uber for me). I've been thinking about buying one, but the longest ride I'd like to do is to get to Washington DC to see friends and family. The DC metro area (and to be real, my preference would be to park somewhere and take transit once I got to the region) is 235 miles away, which is right about the top rated distance for this bolt - but when you read that the observed range for highway driving is 190 miles, and add in unexpected detours and the like, it makes me think I'd need to plan to recharge along the way. Thinking about where I could do that reasonably - and I would totally be down to stop for an hour for a meal and the like - and looking at map of the supercharging stations, leaves me with not a lot of redundant options. Charging station full or out of service? Odds are good that the whole trip will lose its competitive advantage over taking the bus or train rather quickly.
To me that's the source of range anxiety. If I knew I had decent charging options all over the place, I'd want one of these pretty badly.
I get that the EV market is seeking people who make small trips and commuting and the like because that's the easy end of the market to capture, and that's how a lot of people use their cars. But as a society I wish we could just better address those needs via investment in things like urban mass transit and the like.
I would never take a privately owned vehicle on a road trip. One of my coworkers rented a giant obese SUV for a road trip and when it broke down in the literal middle of rural nowhere, it was no problem, the rental car company drove another car to their breakdown in much less than an hour, then they didn't have to deal with paying for 100 mile tows and scammy rural mechanics knowing you will pay anything to get the heck out of there. Also no wear and tear on their regular car. Plus its fun to drive something new.
When I'm on a long road trip, time is of the essence. I don't want to spend more time at gas stations then I have to.
There's also getting yourself to the airport. They tend to be far on the outskirts of town (This also involves paying an arm and a leg if you opt to park.)
If you need a rental car on the other end, you can also look forward to 30 minutes for shuttling, waiting in line, paperwork...
Combined with the cost (Especially for multiple passengers), and the largely unpleasant experience of flying, and I will happily drive 300 miles from Vancouver to Portland, over taking a plane. 400 is probably my limit.
If all the driving you're doing is in the city, yes, an electric car is a great option. They are not a great option for a longer road trip. (Also, fuel economy/effective range goes down quite a bit when you are going above 60 MPH - and most cars are traveling at 75 MPH on an interstate. Gas cars will spend only a little more time at a gas station, but doing the same in an electric will cost you a lot of time.)
Unless you're driving 800 miles into the middle of nowhere, which is so far from a typical use case that it isn't really relevant to the discussion.
For most people, EVs will be better overall. But I wish proponents wouldn't act like there aren't corner cases like this where it doesn't make sense.
It won't take long for this entire 'range' question to invert.
Considering that this is something apartment dwellers can't do themselves, and there isn't a direct profit motive for the landlord, this is where regulations should come in.
[0] https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/unit...
Autonomy will also eventually allow for in-fight recharging. A vehicle will just pull up behind you and plug in.
The Bolt is there to be bought, not admired.
> $30,000. The liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery pack stores 60.0 kilowatt-hours of energy (equivalent to about 1.8 gallons of gasoline), enough to earn a 238-mile range
Good price too
With a Tesla you can take it on a road trip, as long you plan it around hitting supercharging stations. In the bolt, you can go 200 miles, but have to stop for the night to grab a full charge.
But if you aren't the type of person to drive more than 4 hours a day, or have an alternative vehicle for longer trips, this could be a great choice.
734 Supercharger stations: https://www.tesla.com/supercharger
843 CCS stations: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/locator/stations/widget/results?u...
The article is misleading by counting "hookups" (plugs) instead of locations.
> As of September 1, 2016, there were 1061 CCS fast-charging connectors in the United States, versus 2010 Tesla Supercharger hookups.
All of these facts are directly from TFA...
Yes they do. Everyday thousands of tourist drive from BFE to Orlando, it's one of the reasons stretch of I-4 along the attractions is the deadliest in the US (too many tourist that all drive differently).
It may not be common in your region of the world, but it is extremely common in other regions.
Keep in mind the Bolt hasn't gone on sale yet. Nobody's bought one, there are zero Bolt drivers available to pay money to Blink/CP/NRG that are laying out $50K+ to build each CCS charger. If they've built nearly 900 of them around the nation anyway, on the premise that the cars are coming, think about how fast the network can expand when there are actual cars on the road to justify doing so. Volkswagen is going to dump almost $2 billion into building CCS chargers as part of its settlement for the emissions scandal.
Like all technology, early adopters will suffer "just one or two plugs" for a while... or not, if you're in Pennsylvania like me, and the chargers are unused and available 100% of the time I check Plugshare... so that in a few years, when there are half a million or more EVs on the road... that is, potential customers... we will have created demand that led to those additional plugs being built.
Complaining that there are only 1579 fast charge plugs for the Bolt before it goes on sale is like complaining there weren't enough iPhone docks available before the iPhone came out. The accessories showed up after the customers that can buy them did.
Anyway, how quick does it charge, either to full or 50 or 80%?
[1] http://www.chevrolet.ca/bolt-ev-electric-vehicle.html
edit: I am wrong, the article mentions quick charging, but the official website doesn't.
For $750, Bolt buyers can opt for direct-current fast-charging capability via a Combined Charging System (CCS) port. As of September 1, 2016, there were 1061 CCS fast-charging connectors in the United States, versus 2010 Tesla Supercharger hookups. Most CCS stations charge at 50 kilowatts, and Chevrolet claims they can be expected to add 90 miles of range in 30 minutes of charging. Not bad, but that’s roughly half the rate of Tesla’s 120-kW Superchargers, and access to CCS chargers definitely isn’t included in the price of the Bolt.