Not as important … to whom? Currently there’s a lot of areas in the country with long distances between fast charging stations. Sure that might change in years but for now “range anxiety” (as mentioned in the article) is real.
If your EV range is 250-400 miles, and DC fast charging continues to expand rapidly (which it is based on both Tesla and other networks deployment rates), you're paying for and dragging a whole bunch of cells needlessly around (not to mention paying financing/capital costs on that unnecessary equipment). Today, you're never more than 100 miles from a DC fast charger [1] [2] [3] with the caveat being northeastern Montana, the Kansas/Oklahoma border, central Nevada (which could be solved withe a station in Ely), and southeastern New Mexico.
Heck, I can hop into my Model S or Model Y today and drive from Central Florida to Acapulco, Mexico, Prince George, BC, or Quebec/Newfoundland, CA. Range is solved, charging infra is the challenge (which is also why the UK phased out EV subsidies to move towards charging infra financial support [4]).
[2] https://supercharge.info/map | https://ibb.co/n8x05j7 (100 mile range circles on North America, red is active, blue is planned, cones are under construction)
[3] https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html#/fi... (Uncheck Level 2 from charger selection to scope only to DC Fast charging)
[4] https://cleantechnica.com/2022/06/16/uk-ending-electric-car-...
The other issue is that even a fast charger takes considerably longer than a gas pump to refill your car. This, coupled with the relatively low availability of them overall, means that you are more likely to have to wait in line for your turn and you spend even more time not on the road traveling to your destination.
With all this being said, I think an EV is very compelling as a secondary vehicle for 90%+ of use cases so long as you also have an ICE vehicle and a sufficient way to charge your EV at home.
You can lead a horse to water but drowning it does no good. Let it drink when it is sufficiently thirsty. Maybe gas prices prices have to go even higher, who knows! I am morbidly curious to see.
[1] https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight...
[2] https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_operable_crude_oil_distill...
[3] https://www.marketplace.org/2022/05/23/u-s-oil-refiners-marg...
[4] https://electrek.co/2022/03/25/tesla-models-sold-out-2023-pr...
[5] https://electrek.co/2022/03/22/electric-cars-3-to-6-times-ch...
Fossil fuels need to be phased out but forcing gas prices up this fast is a very cruel way to do it.
We want to help the poor; enact a carbon tax and rebate scheme. Let wealthy carbon consumers buy low income folks EVs. They are unable to afford them on their own.
I have a great deal of compassion for genuine hardship. I do not have compassion for voluntary suboptimal economic decisions by people of means out of a minimal amount of convenience sacrificed.
The rapid increase in gas prices is causing a lot of genuine hardship. Not to mention the follow on effects of higher consumer prices for essentials like food.
No, you have a lot of compassion for suboptimal economic decisions.
For example, you advocate for charging infrastructure that only charges one brand of EV even though that is clearly a suboptimal economic decision that builds dumb infrastructure with less utility.
Worse than that, you mock the low price of the Chevy Bolt even though it's a good hatchback with decent range for an EV.
If you genuinely want to help the poor then you want to advocate for infrastructure that can charge all EVs regardless of brand. That way when people eventually buy one of the low price EVs of the world it can be charged just as easily as a high priced EV.
Common infrastructure helps everyone, rich and poor alike. Brand exclusive infrastructure helps only the few.
People don't are about where their energy comes from, what size cages the chickens that lay their eggs live in, how their plastic gets recycled, etc, etc, until they are economically comfortable enough to do so. $5 gas is shortsighted and counterproductive.
For all the low effort quipping about the virtues EV adoption $5 gas is going to make a hell of a lot of people dust off ye olde wood stove this winter and engage in all sorts of other behavior that is not good for the environment but helps them preserve their standard of living.
This is a strange way to think about it. Our secondary vehicle has a huge gas tank and other things we need rarely. Our primary vehicle has what we need day to day, just enough seats for the family and space for groceries.
This is actually a long distance.
Let's consider where my in-laws live: Abilene, TX. They are 80 miles from a fast charger right now. If I drive an EV to visit them, I have to run a 100 ft cable out their house to slow charge my EV (which, I think is SUPER slow). Or, I can drive 80 miles (each way) to recharge and give myself... 120 miles of range "in town"
Be patient as we climb the hockey stick adoption rate. Only recently did Buc-ees agree to Superchargers at every national location, for example.
(my model S gains 48 miles of range per 12 hours on a 16A 120V circuit, which works for situations like you describe, but faster charging everywhere is welcome)
If you have a Tesla. There is no value in single brand chargers. It is profoundly dumb infrastructure.
> If you have a legacy automaker EV, advocate for a non Tesla DC fast charger
Always advocate for chargers that charge all brands, especially if you have a Tesla. Anything less is just stupid.
I know, I know, you despise them. Such is life. I don’t swim upstream.
https://electrek.co/2022/03/17/tesla-still-dominates-us-elec...
https://electrek.co/2022/03/10/tesla-tsla-order-rate-surging...
> Tesla is the biggest EV brand in the US by a long shot. About 80% of all electric cars in the country are Tesla vehicles, and unsurprisingly the company is starting to feel an increase in orders from gas price pressure.
> A source familiar with Tesla’s order rate said that the automaker saw it increase 100% this week compared to last in parts of the country particularly affected by gas prices.
Not if you want to build industry and infrastucture. Lack of direction and fractured infrastructure is part of the reason why America's EV market is only one third the size of Europe's.
> I know, I know, you despise them.
Then you know nothing. It's funny how you have to resort to emotion rather than addressing the obviously worse situation of single brand chargers and the obviously better outcome of infrastructure than can charge all EVs regardless of brand.
There’s a reason Teslas sell well: make something people want and they will buy it. GM is discounting their Bolts by $6k and can’t give them away.
Ah, so now you've changed your tune. It's no longer that I despise Tesla, it's just that we value different outcomes.
Your vacillation is boring and dishonest. You should try harder to keep your story straight.
As long as your road trip travels from fast charger to fast charger 100 mile separations aren't a problem. But in my state (TX) there are lots of places where the 100 miles to a fast charger are not in the direction I want to travel. I don't want to backtrack even 30 miles south to the a charger in the wrong direction just to recharge so that I can drive the 30 miles north to be back where I started on the trip.
If your average daily use of a car is less than the equivalent of driving from Philadelphia to New York and then back again, you will have no problem with keeping your EV charged with a 50A charger in your home.