How do I go on a road trip from Miami to Seattle without very carefully planning around public charging stations and spending lots of extra time sitting around waiting on my EV to charge?
With an ICE vehicle, refueling is practically an after thought.
It’s even worse if you’re planning on hauling a trailer with an electric pickup truck.
We are definitely putting the cart before the horse on this.
Today I drive a long-range EV, and level 3 chargers are pretty amazing. I can get a few hundred miles' charge in ~20 minutes. That's about the amount of time that I like to get out of my car to stay alert anyway. Granted, level 3 chargers are still pretty rare, but in Canada where I live now, Petro-Canada has seen the writing on the wall, and they're installing level 3 chargers at their gas stations.
With a 9-year horizon on this policy, there is lots of time and motivation to build out charging infrastructure. The lack of charging infrastructure today is not a good reason to be stuck on oil for the indefinite future.
You could rent a gas-powered car for the trip. But how often are you ever going to do that? Most of us make a trip like that rarely, or never; I have driven coast-to-coast exactly once in my life.
> We are definitely putting the cart before the horse on this.
Greater demand will provide an economic incentive to invest in greater supply.
You hear the same nonsense when it comes to riding bikes. There’s always some reason someone can’t ride bikes / drive an EV / walk more / whatever, and that means we shouldn’t make any changes ever. So dumb.
EVs aren't the best road trip vehicle but that's ok, I don't road trip every day. They absolutely are the best 99% daily vehicle though if you have home charging.
Nothing is the best at everything, the EV compromise is pretty darn acceptable though. (that said, PHEVs with 80 miles of range would be even better)
Over the past few years, I've noticed that many superchargers now have competing CCS networks nearby.
Also, tesla has been opening up superchargers, and the other day I used one that can charge either tesla or CCS vehicles (via the "Magic Dock").
By the time this legislation starts getting traction, it will be possible and practical.
Long haul trips are the tricky bit, but that’s surely not that hard to solve.
It’s also only charging at the rate of a standard wall socket, so I’m not sure the grid cares that much.
I’m sure that I could save money by tailoring usage better, but ‘cheaper overnight’ is about all I know about it.
How often do people do that? For this kind of trip, it's honestly better to rent a car anyway. You don't need to drive back, which is nice. Also, such a drive is generally pretty hard on your car. It's better to do it in someone else's car.