And that's fair enough, but I find the tyranny of "it works for me so you're doing it wrong" very real. In many areas, but in particular with electric car range discussions.
They don't say it's superior. Multiple things can be true at once. People often like to cook at home. It's all cozy. It also is a way to save money. People with smaller house have more disposable income, to splurge more liberally on luxuries, feel less constrained in their choice to go out. All those things are true. I think the main message is that people needlessly make conventional choices (e.g. big house, big car), and these choices then drive their decision making after the fact. They're reminding us that stuff (the actual tangible inanimate things) have a tendency to start to own you, rather than the other way around.
One could also talk about the tyranny of people living their freedom of personal choice to the maximum.
"My solution works for me but will never scale to work for the entire humanity as we're simply too many on this planet for that and also totally screws the environment for future generations, but hey, it works for me!"
Right now people have an issue with the edge cases of EV range. That doesn't mean they wouldn't ever replace their ICE car with an EV if the range story were better (meaning the range of the vehicle itself as well as the charging story).
I'm in a similar situation. My motorbike does, most of the year, ~50 km trips to go see my parents for the weekend (I take the metro or a bicycle for my commute needs). It could be electric, no problem.
But several weeks a year, sometimes on end, I'll go ride in the mountains where current electrical motorbikes would be useless. It's way cheaper for me to own my current motorbike (which I own outright) than to sell it and rent for my trips in addition to buying an electric one. If an electric motorbike could have the same range as mine and the charging infrastructure in the back roads were useful, I could see myself riding around on an electric bike.
It would be debatable whether buying a new motorbike when mine is still in perfect working condition would actually be better for the environment, but I'd say that's another question.
EV range concerns have an obvious solution: build more EV fast charging stations and guarantee cross-compatibility. Standardize the billing system (the EU strategy of "figure it out or we'll do it for you" would be a good one to pull on the automakers here).
The solution is not ever going to be another round of people posting caustic hot takes on social media trying to shame people.
As an aside, range is not a problem with new EV's with 500-600 km range as long as the charging network is good. There was a lot of talk about range anxiety in the early days when cars had 150-300 km range and charging stations were rare. These days with charging stations on every gas station, mall, ferry port, grocery store, random parking lots and what not long drives are no longer a problem as long as you plan a little bit and don't drive through hundreds of kilometers of no mans land without charging up first.
500km is a short drive for some, when you can only fast charge to 80% and cars get far less range in the cold. 500km becomes 400km at 80%, you have to start hunting at 70km range, and at 140km/hr that's just over 2 hours of driving.
(Speed reduces range too)
But as I said in another comment, this will self fix. Charging time will come down, range will extend.
When you can fast charge a car to true 600km range, even at 140km/hr at -20C, with the heater running, and in under 10 minutes, I'd say we're there.
Maybe by 2028? I think?
Then there is all the routes that just don't have chargers, so you are limited to only the common roads.
Until EV gets way better range, I think plug in hybrids make way more sense.
And only two of them are close enough I'd consider it a day trip.
That said:
> Until EV gets way better range, I think plug in hybrids make way more sense.
I absolutely agree. 90% of the environmental benefit with much faster roll-out.
But yes, this will solve itself. Each year charging becomes faster, each year travel distance longer, it will auto solve.
One thing people overlook, is many places have blackouts! If tomorrow, every person switched to electric cars, it would be disaster.
So as people switch, we'll have to build more capacity into the grid. Not just production, but substations, and transfer lines too.
And this will happen.
The reality of grid upgrades is unless we make the problem worse, it won't get better.
TBH, that is mostly a communication problem. Tesla already does much better than most non-EV types realize. A shocking number of people think road trips require literal multi-hour charging stops. "I heard from this Tesla owner that he only charges overnight... I'd have to stop at a hotel every 200 miles!" sigh
Consumer education is still important.
Outside of a Tesla... road tripping EVs in the US is often not fun.