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You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV. Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"?

Not to mention how many people sleep on Level 1 and Level 2 charging, which are cheap or cheap as free in many homes. (Garages have had electric outlets for a long time. Some have had "dryer plugs" for nearly as long, due to power tools one might own.) Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either.

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> You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV.

I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.

> Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either.

Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery. We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120. Despite living in a city with many Teslas, and having an expensive home, apparently it would have cost too much for them to upgrade their panel to be able to charge faster. They are retired so can make do (and they have other cars that use gas).

> The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.

Which is exactly the point and why it is a bonus. You can't do that with a gas car effectively or cheaply. You won't pay someone to come and install a gas service in your home or apartment with the express reason for fueling your car. That you can with an EV and would get a game changing efficiency and cost reduction is an incredible bonus.

> Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery.

That seems to be less of a factor today. Most batteries have hit the same or more range as comparable gas vehicles.

Some EV models already have ~600 mile range which is double their gas counterparts.

> We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120.

Sure, but that's to 100%. You can drive a car with less than 100% battery. A 120v charge can add as much as 40-60 miles range overnight. That's an average person's regular commute. The car might "never" be at 100% if the 120v charge is all it ever gets, but for some people they might never need a fast charge in an average week or even month.

> Most batteries have hit the same or more range as comparable gas vehicles.

Really? Which ones? I'm not aware of any vehicles where the ICE version has less range than the EV version.

And in general, people who are on the fence about an EV in the first place are not going to be buying the extra-expensive long-range models.

We are trusting range figures now?

EV batteries are reliable. "Range Degradation" is mostly a disproven myth. [0] Range figures vary with driving style, but that's the exact same issue with gas range, gas cars just had very bad/loose/nonexistent feedback on driving style inefficiency.

[0] Outside of the non-temperature controlled batteries of "classic" Nissan Leaf models and early Tesla models, but even then "range degradation" is largely overstated and statistically very few batteries were ever replaced in the lifetime of those cars.

> You won't pay someone to come and install a gas service in your home or apartment

Apartment? So I can pay someone to come and install a fast EV charger in my apartment on the 6th floor?

I don't know how hard it is to imagine the easily elided phrase "garage or parking lot or street parking or whatever parking situation" after apartment, but unless you also park in your apartment on the 6th floor it seems silly to ask this question to me.

> I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.

I know multiple people who have EVs and don't have a home charger, so do 90%+ of their charging at work. You're there 8+ hours a day anyway, and many workplaces provide free charging, so it ends up even cheaper than charging at home.

If you have a free work charger, that's almost as good as having charging at home. Most people do not have this, and even if you do then you would be SOL if you switch jobs.

My 35 floors building has exactly 2 chargers. Both are FIFO, max 5 hours or you start parking and both are slow af and pay for charge. Charging M3 on one of those is probably a whole day activity and would cost you probably more than if you get a diesel generator running to power charger.

So I might not know those people, but know of at least 10 teslas that aren't charging at home every day, because usually those spots are taken by polestars.

I have an EV and can't charge at home (condo where cost to add a charger would be obscene). In 3 years there's been maybe 5 times where it's been a mild inconvenience. Which isn't nothing but a few hours of hassle is a pretty good price to pay for the thousands of dollars I've saved on fuel.

>Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"?'

You know that's a bad faith argument. Facts are, EVs have friction and that holds back a lot of adoption, and pretending it isn't there isn't going to make it go away.

It's not a bad faith argument, it is comparing like for like. (Saying that it isn't like for like seems to me to be the more bad faith argument in 2026.) If I have a gas car with 300 miles of range I go about 297 miles safely between fill ups. If I have an EV car with 300 miles of range I can go about 297 miles safely between charges. Those are the same characteristics.

The part that isn't like for like sure is that there is an increased friction that even a "fast charger" can take a magnitude more time than a gas pump. But fast chargers are much safer and can be parallel tasked (running other errands while a charge happens) whereas gas is an explosive and requires diligent observation while refueling (despite how many people seem oblivious to all the warnings not to leave a refueling car unobserved and a long history of explosion statistics).

In my experience, fast charging time and lack of home charging ability (and under-estimation of Level 1/2 charging utility) feel like red herrings rather than actual issues. These things get talked about a lot, but the real world experience of them isn't the friction people believe it is. The biggest issues seem to be far more sociopolitical than technical to me. People have invested too much of their identities in gas. Entire political parties seem devoted to propping up gas sales for as long as possible.

It is definitely a bad faith argument. That is no friction point really that anyone considers a friction point. The charger situation though is real friction. Take yourself out of your own shoes. I will give you anecdata. I have a friend who bought a tesla with no way to charge it in their apartment. It just seems like such a pain in the ass. So many times they are on like 18% charge and wondering if the car is going to actually make it home. Or they will be about to go somewhere and realize the car isn't going to be charged enough so they call an uber. It is unreliable transport without having a home charger. A new chore you have to remember to do. A bit more mental load making that extra calculation every time you want to leave. Having to actually consider where there might be chargers that you can use and if you'd be able to reach them on your present charge.

Take all of that anecdata and replace a gas car and it is the exact same with the same mental load: I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car.

"It's an unreliable transport without having a gas pump at home." That just sounds silly. Funnily enough that was exactly one of the early complaints of gas cars when electric cars were preferred in the very early days of cars. It was a complaint when gas pumps were rare and hard to find, or didn't exist at all yet and you were pulling gas canisters from the back of a pharmacy.

It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can charge at home. (I can't do that at all with gas.) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because in a pinch I can find an outlet on the outside of my hotel and trickle charge enough to get me to the next charger. (When was the last time a hotel had canisters of gas just in case?) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can find RV plugs in national parks and state parks and campgrounds far away from chargers and gas stations. (You ever see what you might get charged for a tow from a remote national park, even if that tow is just dropping off a canister of gas?)

The impression of the charger situation being more inconvenient than gas stations is already flipping and has room to flip a lot more, possibly surprisingly quickly, as gas prices rise and low margin gas pumps go out of business.

> I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car.

Ridiculous, since there are gas stations all over and you can get 50 miles of range in 30 seconds, or 350 miles of range in 120 seconds. Even the fastest EVs (which are expensive and therefore not likely purchases for people who are on the fence about EVs in general) do not even come close.

The fastest are maybe 18 minutes from 10-80%, but most are 30-45 minutes (and that's only for 70% of the total range of the vehicle, whereas an ICE can be fully tanked up in 2 minutes.

> since there are gas stations all over

That's the assumption, though. There aren't. There is an illusion of it, sure. I gave that anecdata from personal experience. It isn't "ridiculous", it's called having lived (and learned to drive) in rural Ohio.

If the region is so remote that gas station access is really that poor, ev charger access is probably entirely nonexistent.

But electricity is not nonexistent. It's easier to run an EV in rural Ohio than a gas car because you can install a real nice charger in that huge garage you have or outside your big barn next to your gravel lot, whatever, you've got space and a grid connection. That's not currently the average mentality, but that returns us to the sociopolitics of rural Ohio and EV adoption in the US in general more than any of the technicalities.

So just to be clear, we've moved to goalposts from acknowledging there is friction for a lot of people's EV situation to imagining some rural ohioan with a big garage installing their own level 2 charger and using that as justification to gaslight my own garage-less living experiences as a nonexistent friction point towards EV ownership.

No, I've been pretty consistent that I don't agree there's as much friction as people think there is, that in our society right now are a bunch of sociopolitical issues driving people away from doing the real research or actually trying to live with an EV. If goalposts seem to be moving it may be because you can't firm up your point on what "friction" even means to you.

Well, I've lived for several decades in several different states/regions, and in my experience, gas stations are all over. They even have signs on the highway when there's no gas for x miles ahead.

While there may be electricity everywhere, there certainly are not high-speed chargers in places where gas is even close to scarce.

Can you install it in your garage? Sure, if you've got the panel for it. But that's beside the point when we're talking about refueling on trips. That is, and will be for the foreseeable future, faster in an ICE. That's why we have PHEVs. Maintenance may be higher than an EV, but they're much better on road trips.

I found some data from an auto insurance association.

In US urban areas the average car is only driven 6000 miles a year. That's 115 miles a week. Someone in an urban city would only need to charge every two weeks. Friend has a Chevy Bolt in SF he parks on the street. He says it's not a problem.

I also repeat myself but I've measured how long it take to gas up a car on road trips. It's usually around 10-15 minutes. Oh sure actually filling the car is quick. But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station.

>But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station.

Costs you also pay driving to the EV charging station. 10-15 mins really? Maybe if you are taking a poop or buying a sandwich. Usually on road trips gas stations are immediately off the freeway or at major crossroads of state or county roads. You aren't really detouring to get to them.

>it is comparing like for like.

Is it? Can I get an electric car recharged at a gas station in the same time it takes me to fill up a gas tank?

If yes, cool. If not, then the idea is that I wouldn't want to sit in a parking lot; I'd want to charge at home instead. And if I can't reliably charge at home instead...

Pretty close. ~15 minutes for gas [0], ~20 minutes for electric. People often claim ~5 minutes for gas, but in reality most people stop for ~15 minutes for refueling. According to AAA at least, who I generally trust more than anecdotes on the Internet.

15 minutes?!?

I'd be surprised if I even hit five minutes.

Do you have a source on that AAA thing?

I'm certain I've never spent 5 minutes putting gas into any vehicle I've ever owned. The AAA reference may be how long it takes from exiting the freeway to re-entering the freeway for a gas fill-up, because sometimes it takes a little while to get to the station you want and complete the whole transaction.

It could also be from old data from back in the day when you had to go in and pay with cash or credit at the register. Now that most places have credit card terminals or Apple Pay at the pump, it takes about 45 seconds from when I pull up to when I'm putting gas in my vehicle.

So are you going to trust dubious pop statistics data from a nonscientific agency and let that gaslight you into imagining you take on average 15 minutes at the pump? Have you ever pumped gas before?

Just timed myself starting from where I turned off the road into the gas station: at ~3m 20s I was pulling over to get air in my tires with a full tank of gas. If I drove back to the road it would have landed right around four minutes. 13.7 gallons went in.

You never did cite btw, I see a [0] but no link. 15m might make sense in a context of a bathroom or snack break, or paying cash, or going out of your way, or filling a pickup truck. But filling up with gas is obviously way faster than recharging a battery.

> a "fast charger" can take a magnitude more time than a gas pump

I think that's overstating it a bit. A fast charging stop is 20 minutes (often less) whereas a typical gas stop is 15 minutes according to AAA. Where the gas option has a momentary advantage is that modern gas stations are often attached to convenience stores, and this is not often the case with fast chargers yet.

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