mmarshall

What you say is correct, but (to me, at least) it still begs the question of whether most EV-sales are going to be because of actual public-desire, or because of government-jawboning/push/regulation. In other words, are people going to say "Well, I bought (or leased) this vehicle because I really wanted it, or because the government says I have to if I still want to keep driving a privately-owned vehicle"?

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

as often the case it will be some combination and no way to know which is the bigger force. but despite range anxiety, slow charging, spotty availability of public chargers, and reduced capacity in cold weather, EVs still have HUGE advantages over gas vehicles and those advantages are pulling in customers TODAY and will only continue to pull in more and more. some of those advantages are obviously hugely reduced fuel costs, much lower maintenance costs (no oil changes, electric motors are extremely reliable), very quiet running, excellent performance, etc.

and government pushing varies as credits on teslas are already reduced and may go away entirely.

-J-P-L-

Just some bullet points from my perspective.

EV's are still just 1% of the US market. There's a long way to go before declaring it the future.

Pricing is still inhibiting the success of EV's. There's still a large gap to fill too. And many (or most) people aren't interested in gas savings over 10 years to make up the difference. ICE vehicles have also gotten too expensive for average people to afford with average transactions reaching $37K. Asking people to pay much more for an EV just isn't going to work.

Tesla's remain the most desirable EV's by far. However, they still have too many compromises for people, even outside of EV range. Get into an accident in a Tesla and you'll be driving a rental for 1-2 months. That's a Tesla problem not an EV problem though but since they are the main EV player it's significant.

I'm in the liberal, highly populated Northeast and I've never seen a Tesla supercharging station. I travel a lot. I've driven from MA to FL and back several times and have never seen one along the crazy busy I-95 corridor. I imagine there's some off exits somewhere but no signs and I've taken tons of exits and pit stops and have yet to see one. Never seen a Tesla store either.

One thing that bugs me is this idea that electric cars are seen as zero emission or "green" or part of an emission free future is ludicrous. The only way for it to be "emission" free is lots and lots of new nuclear power plants that supply most of our power. Solar, wind, etc. can only produce a small percentage of what we would need. Everything about massive battery packs isn't green. Starting with the mining of the materials, to the complex manufacturing process, and right now charging them using mostly coal burning. It's much greener to produce an ICE car up front.

With all that said, I certainly find EV's intriguing on a number of levels. The effortless acceleration coming from a silent motor is just cool. A lot of things need to still go a long way for a mass switch to EV's. And if that were to happen, is there enough raw lithium and other needed materials for the world to make many 10s of millions of vehicles a year worldwide for many decades? There's already a battery shortage and where at 1% of the market, LOL.

Toys4RJill

These are some great bullet points on why EVs maybe more difficult to implement.

I would like to add where does the governments get their tax revenue for road usage like they collect now with gasoline? Charging the EV sounds cheap now, but as more and more people start charging, electric companies will start charging more. Cali already charged a fee for a EV plate renewal. It is cheap right but, will continue to climb.

mmarshall

Depending on the source, more electricity-production at the plants, to meet more charging-demand, may (?) also mean more pollution at the plants...and there go some of the no-emission advantages of pure-electric vehicles. The environmentalists often don't stop and think about that.

SW17LS

Like I've said before, recharging needs to be as easy, accessible and quick as refueling before we will see the real mainstream adaption of EVs.

LeX2K

This was once true in the horse and buggy era.
This is true for any new tech, remember how much computers used to cost?
Depending on where you live the payback can be much faster, or it can be longer. On average buying an EV to save on energy costs should not be a top consideration.
The difference here is an ICE vehicle has little room for further cost cutting, the battery pack is the most expensive (and heavy) part of an EV cost and weight are going to plummet in the next decade.
Tesla is doing a terrible job supplying replacement parts no question about it.
You're not looking very hard Tesla chargers are everywhere.
This is another situation where it depends on location if power is mostly from hydro then the carbon footprint to drive is very low compared to an ICE. The raw materials to make an EV are hardly different than an ICE vehicle in fact it comes to do using less or more of certain metals. Much less iron and aluminum in an EV because no engine block and cylinder heads, more cobalt etc. in an EV. Either way metals are easy to recycle (and vastly cheaper than mining them from raw materials).

Here's why EV's will take over, they have the potential to be nearly 100% green an ICE car can never achieve this. And even if we continue to use oil, natural gas, coal etc. to generate electricity having emissions in a central location makes them far easier to control, and the burning of said fuels is way more efficient on a large scale.

Toys4RJill

I agree. At some point, the conversion from gas stations to EV charging stations perhaps would need a project as large as the US interstate creation from the past.

SW17LS

What makes sense is to see electric charging built into existing gas stations. However, it needs to be fully charged in 10-15 mins max.

Toys4RJill

Would work. But how do you monetize it?

mmarshall

I have to agree with J-P-L. I live in the D.C. area, one of the most traffic-dense and highly-populated regions in the country, and EV chargers, though available at dealerships, are not exactly a dime a dozen elsewhere in the region. My GM dealership has some, but that is mainly because of the Chevy Bolt and Volt.....customers often bring their cars in for a recharge.

LeX2K

Got a source on this? It cost about $600 billion in today's dollars to build the initial interstate system. Much much more to have what exists today.

Toys4RJill

That is just a guess of something that would need to be done, so no source. . There 170,000 gas stations in the US. If you convert all of them to electric charging stations. How does it happen? What kind of infrastructure would be needed for something of this magnitude?

-J-P-L-

I know there's enough that can make a road trip work. You have to plan well and plan meals around the charging stops. Will absolutely add a loot of time to already long road trips.

My point was that they aren't exactly like finding a gas station. Like I said, I go on cross country road trips and somehow have never seen one with hundreds of stops over the last several years. This means that they aren't off exits in my experience. Apparently you need to take a trip off the exit to get to them.

The nearest two to me is 35 and 45 minutes away and I'm an hour from Boston. I'm in the 3rd most densely populated state (MA) and a half hour away from the 2nd most densely populated state (RI).

mmarshall

This discussion seems to be turning into what comes first......the chicken or the egg? Will the EVs come in response to first investing in the charging-stations, or will an increasing number of EVs themselves actually force more stations to be built? I am generally of the former view....government legislation or not, people are not going to buy or lease EVs unless they know that there will be a reasonable number of places they can be recharged, in a reasonable amount of time, at reasonable cost, at a reasonable distance from home. Anything else would be like people just trying to grasp at straws.