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Comment by LarsAlereon | Hacker News Reader

Tesla was the only Western car company serious about making electric cars. Every other company is very clear that they make gas cars, don't want to make electric cars, and will only do so if forced by the government. Consumers only want to buy electric cars, so it's essentially a two horse race between Tesla and Chinese car companies. I'm no fan of today's Elon Musk, but I'm also not a fan of surrendering the car market to China.

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Yup. This. Without an all-EV manufacturer keeping the ICE manufacturers honest, every EV is the EV1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1#Demise

Consumers do not want to buy electric cars, at least not in the UK. They are far too expensive and the infrastructure doesn't exist. Visit a motorway service station and see 10 chargers in a car park for hundreds of cars. The government is trying to mandate a set percentage of car sales to be electric, but consumers don't want them so the manufacturers are set an impossible target to achieve.

Electric cars also destroy the industry in repairs (exhausts etc.) which may or may not be a good thing, but the repercussions in terms of jobs/industry is quite large. I myself have a 53 year old VW Beetle that I can drive compared to the old Android phone in the drawer that is useless (battery life/software updates) despite being far younger.

So there is so much demand that chargers can't keep up but you say people don't want to buy? Okay...

No, I am saying that the current amount of chargers in locations (10) is likely sufficient for the existing "demand", but woefully inadequate if the artificial demand being constructed by forced quotas was actually met (ie, if all the hundreds of existing petrol cars switched to electric).

If all petrol stations suddenly only had 1 pump, we'd say that the infrastructure was inadequate, not that the overburdened 1 pump indicated a great demand for petrol cars.

Geez, wonder if we can ever build more chargers.

Well obviously yes! But mandating a minimum number of electric cars sold whilst NOT mandating an equivalent number of chargers being fitted is a recipe for disappointment.

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