41 percent of consumers say their next car will be electric
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
1) There doesn't seem to be any practical or socially acceptable way of charging a car that is parked on the street (I don't have a driveway)
2) Electric cars seems to still be significantly more expensive, even used. For what I was willing to pay, I couldn't find anything more than a very basic used leaf.
3) At the affordable end at least: They are so ugly and there's little to choose from. Both the Leaf and Zoe have this weird "electric car" look that I am not keen on.
That was my experience a couple of years ago in the UK
These ways are pretty cool:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjiR-Wz_Z8s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb5aA3Qepe8
Wireless charge points are also in the future:
If you don't get a Tesla then the infrastructure is still not great. And roaming negotiations to let other electric cars use Teslas charging is still not a thing.
For a successful rollout every charging facility has to be available, period.
Adding electric charging to gas stations will not help enough.
The current selection of electric cars is much better today, though most new cars seem to be in the high end of the price range.
But soon:
https://electrek.co/2021/07/20/elon-musk-confirms-tesla-open...
Charging speed is still not great, the new Skoda Enyaq iV can charge to 80% capacity in 34 minutes. That translates to 12,6 km/minute for the first 80%.
A 10 year old diesel car can add about 200 km/minute when refueling.
The range for the Enyaq is from 300-600 km, while the diesel car is about 850 km.
A new Skoda Octavia has a range of about 1100 km, so nearly double the range of the Enyaq on a summer day.
So both charging speed and range has a long way to go for EVs.
https://ev-database.org/car/1280/Skoda-Enyaq-iV-80#charge-ta...
The Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6 can charge 10% to 80% in 18 minutes. They use the same platform:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCqcqy29ZCc
The charge curve is different from other EVs. It has two peaks. It peaks at around 225 kW initially and then has a second peak at around 175 kW.
If there is only 100 kW DC available, charging will be slower than the Enyaq.
Range is a bit smaller than Enyaq and it's price is still rather high.
On the other hand your EV could be charging at home whilst you sleep thereby avoiding any visits to the forecourt.
If you live in a house, then EV starts to make sense.
Having said that I doubt we will buy another ICE. At the moment demand is high and supply is constrained so of course the manufacturers are going to concentrate on high margin products. Hopefully this will change as the supply ramps up.
A Tesla Model 3 base model in white with no options will cost $41K with destination charge and no self-driving. Upgrade to the long range model, any color other than white, and get the self-driving package and you're looking at $60K. That same $60K could buy two Honda Insight hybrids which get 40-50mpg, and you'd still thousands left over. There are cheaper electric cars out there, but it's still tough to compete with economy gasoline cars or even economy hybrids like the Honda Insight.
Road trips are also a hurdle for many. If a family drives 8 hours to visit grandma twice a year but an electric car would require a long charging stop at sparse charging infrastructure, suddenly that gas powered vehicle looks a lot more attractive.
The cost to install an EV charging station can be as low as $500, but if it does cost more due to having to have your load center/breaker panel replaced, the US government has a 30% tax credit up to $1000 to offset the costs.
The Tesla Supercharger network is extensive [2], and continues to grow by the week; charging at one takes ~20-30 minutes. Other networks with less coverage are available for Teslas (with an adapter) and non-Teslas alike.
It does't hurt that jurisdictions continue to enact deadlines for combustion vehicle bans [3].
[1] https://insideevs.com/features/521424/tesla-model3-camry-hyb...
[2] https://supercharge.info/map
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
Doing the same math for most American states will punish the Tesla.
Surely the evidence is stronger for cost per mile and cost per year being lower for a Toyota than a Tesla over the whole lifetime of the vehicle.
It is possible infrastructure for gas will be reduced in 20 years, but I doubt it will be anything noticeable to almost all people with gas vehicles.
As of Mar 2019, percent of electric vehicles sold in US was at 1.8%. That means the majority of fossil fuel cars sold in 2019 will probably be around in some way in 20 years (cars generally last much longer these days).
https://www.eei.org/issuesandpolicy/electrictransportation/d...
If you are taking an 8 hour road trip , it's not a huge stretch to put an 45 min charging session (especially if only twice a year, you're out 90 mins).
Most people I know around here seem to have similar reservations at best. Plus the majority of vehicles here are trucks and SUVs, for which there are still very few EV options.
Agreed on the truck. Or you can just have 1 EV and 1 truck/SUV.
I love enduro riding and MX racing though. Tried to do this electric didn't really like it. Maybe it will grow on me when it improves.
- How about those in cold climates where batteries don’t last nearly as long.
- upper middle-class and higher only? Most apartments don’t have hookups. Those that do don’t have enough for 10% of the residents. How many home have hookups? How many families have $10k laying around to install hookups?
Beyond the fact that it’s not reasonable at all for most Americans, no electrical grid would be able to handle it.
It takes 2 minutes to refill you car with petrol. Most people don’t have the patience to wait 4 hrs for a fillup.
Electric vehicles for near majority is not realistic at all right now.
At the moment, this is a “cool” novelty, but not an option for most.
And as for the grid not being able to handle the load - we were able to roll out air conditioning to every home in a couple of decades. I believe this is a solvable problem.
However, that would result in this additional marginal demand being satisfied mostly by fossil fuel plants: natural gas and coal, which currently ramp up and down on a daily basis. What is more likely to occur is that the new marginal demand caused by EVs will be satisfied by new capacity from solar and wind farms. Areas with good solar capacity (CA, FL, the southwest) will incentivize EVs to charge during the day, and areas with more consistent wind capacity (the midwest) will incentivize charging at night. Coal plants will increasingly close for economic reasons, while existing natural gas plants will continue to run at lower capacity factors.
Depending on how electricity and carbon markets are structured, and how the costs of different generation technologies and fuels change in the future, there's a good chance that the US grid of the future will look like how I described, and that people will pay less of their income on energy services, and that the air in cities and homes will be cleaner, and that people around the world will be less at risk from the effects of climate change.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-view/el...
Like Norway where EV's have over 55% of the market?
https://www.electrive.com/2021/04/07/norway-registers-84-8-m...