Most of China isn't a city either, but just like in the US most people live in cities.
You see those photos of rows and rows of giant apartment towers in Chinese cities? Now compare that to photos of Atlanta or Nashville or Dallas or LA. Notice how there's a big lack of the oceans of giant apartment towers? Maybe that makes some kind of difference in transportation.
For text and numbers: Shenzhen urban area is 1,748 km2. Atlanta is 353.04km2. Los Angeles City is 1,299 km2 (yes the metro area is quite larger, but so is Shenzhen's).
The average length of a trip in the US is 19.63 km.
This is simple basic stuff. There is absolutely nothing that makes Americans uniquely need tank-sized vehicles with 1000km range, even with the uniquely terrible urban design that most American cities have.
https://external-preview.redd.it/l-nJkXPlhrxDStYQNwQ7BUfpNFc...
https://live.staticflickr.com/2486/4155417202_9510efd2dc_b.j...
Hop on Google Maps. Just look for yourself. Does Shenzen look like Atlanta Or LA? Where's the seas of single-family houses? They're not there. Have all the text and numbers you want, just look and see. If you really think Shenzen's urban areas look like Atlanta or LA after spending two minutes on Google Maps, you're delusional.
> uniquely need tank-sized vehicles with 1000km range
I'm not arguing people need 1,000km range, but personally I wouldn't buy a car without at least 150+mi range for a non-road trip car given the realities of the city I live in. At least monthly I drive >100mi round trip and would like some amount of range extra in there, as the destination doesn't yet have charging. And I'm pretty light on driving!
They aren't there because Shenzen urban planers have higher IQ than room temperature in Celsius. That doesn't mean most Americans travel huge distances daily.
> I'm not arguing people need 1,000km range, but personally I wouldn't buy a car without at least 150+mi range for a non-road trip car given the realities of the city I live in. At least monthly I drive >100mi round trip and would like some amount of range extra in there, as the destination doesn't yet have charging. And I'm pretty light on driving!
Again, the average trip in the US is less than 20km. So that means that the majority of people living in America would be totally fine with a Renault Zoe, Dacia Spring, Renault 5 or equivalent vehicle for most of their trips. Hell, many will be fine in a Citroen Ami.
The urban design absolutely has a huge impact of routine distances travelled and total miles driven in a day. If there's a corner store at the bottom of my 40 story tall apartment tower instead of driving a few miles, it changes your travel distances considerably.
> the average trip in the US is less than 20km
I don't buy my car for my 50th percentile drive. Probably 60% of my drives are less than 10mi. I'm not going to buy a car that only gets me 20mi though. I'd rather buy a car that meets at least my 80% needs on range. I'll deal with charging on long road trips, but until there's at least a good number of chargers locally where I'm almost guaranteed to be able to charge at the destination if on one of those 75-80th percentile drives I'm going to want plenty of charge to go there and back again without needing to stop in the middle, even if only for like 10 minutes or so.
Also, when talking area, you're comparing Atlanta proper to Shenzen. You should really be comparing the Atlanta metro area (21,693km²) or the LA-Anaheim-Riverside CSA at 87,940 km². China doesn't really do the same thing as the US with tons of smaller cities surrounding a small central city, they largely just have the one big city.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in agreement that people generally don't need 300+mi range on their cars, Americans tend to drive massively oversized vehicles for their needs, lots of urban design in the US has been pretty trash in the end, etc. And yeah, I'm in agreement that a Renault Zoe, with ~250mi of range, could suit most Americans. That's still 2x more range than a Tiago.ev, and the Zoe is still quite a big larger.
Thinking the Tiago.ev would be widely accepted in the US, in its current climate, is a fantasy.
> I don't buy my car for my 50th percentile drive.
For most people the average is more like the 95th percentile.
19.63 km is the average commute distance in manhattan, one of America's densest cities and a place where most people don't even use cars. The average for america in general is 67.2 km. And those are averages for a daily use. People need cars that can handle the longest distances they would need to travel. People don't drive 500+km every day, but trips of that length are not unusual either. I'm going to be driving 650 km one way tomorrow.
No they don't, it's much more optimal to buy something that is geared towards your daily needs, and then if you need to drive cross country a few times a year you can rent a big car, that's almost always going to be cheaper, even before taking fuel costs into account.
> People need cars that can handle the longest distances they would need to travel
You should not buy a car for the rare, most demanding use case.