Most Teslas are sold in the suburbs and it's a gigantic benefit to them. Most people commutes are less than 60 miles a day from the suburbs and with an effective range of 200 miles or more, it's the perfect daily. It's the city dwellers that will have issues with EV ownership as most don't have a dedicated garage.

 

@LexsCTJill didn’t say “city dwellers don’t have good access to charging”. She said most people don’t “want” to plug in every nite. I don’t read that comment as relating to city dwellers at all because if you live in a city you are unlikely to *need* a charge every day.

And she said most people don’t want to “pay” for a charging point. Not that they aren’t *able* to install one.

so maybe you took those statements as city mouse vs country mouse. I didn’t.

 

People that own EVs love the fact they can charge at home. Here we are again talking about negatives that actual owners don't complain about.

 

Owners dont complain because clearly EVs work for them, but they work for very few people, and we're just voicing reasons why EVs don't work for us. Seeing how Porsche EV goes from claimed 210 mile range to 70 mile when driven hard in moderately cold weather is very discouraging. I have no interest in having to drive like a hypermiler worrying about the range.

 

We have an EV and a Plug In Hybrid. We did opt to get an at home charger, makes pretty quick work of topping off both. Like others have said, our use cases are generally around down and errands, maybe 100 miles on a busy weekend day. Plenty for the EV, even our PHEV can easily handle day care drop off/pick up and most small errands, and then of course gas hybrid for anything longer distance needed.

At at home charger isn't terribly expensive, but we do enjoy the ability of having that within our own garage. Many people don't. And it's quite easy to plug in when we get home, didn't really take any "getting used to"

Have never had range anxiety to speak of with several thousand miles under our belts now.

 

I guess if it wasn’t an issue...we’d see 100 mile range cars that get plugged in every day. Battery EVs work for some...not all.

 

I’m actually half-seriously looking to add a Chevy Bolt to the herd. Do we need it? Probably not - oldest DD is moving out in couple months, and the middle one has one more year of college. BUT, Chevy is almost giving them away - even without state or utility company support, I can probably do a one pay 36/10k lease for under $7k ( which translates to under $200/month for a car that has a sticker price of $44k (I know, it’s inflated, but still). With gas prices creeping up, the savings at the pump would probably cover half the lease cost. And, we’d still keep 3 ICE cars for the occasional road trip. Decisions, decisions, decisions....

 

Good discussion all, and it's clear each is coming from their own point of view (city, suburbs, good weather, foul weather, fanboy, etc).

great post but not really true about 'most people' because a huge # of people don't have a garage or a place to charge at work. But for those who do have a garage, you're probably right that most could make an EV work for them, except as i mentioned in very cold weather.

I've seen this point made before about "oh just rent something for trips". Well a) renting isn't all that cheap, and b) it's certainly not convenient for a lot of people (vs. say renting a car for when you travel by plane). Where i live it's probably at least 20mi. to a car rental place, so i'd have to drive with someone else to go get the rental car so we can drive both vehicles back to the house to load up the rental car and head out. Same again upon return in reverse. That would each several more hours of time not to mention the cost, and depending on when someone's leaving (early in the morning for example) or returning (late at night for example) it may require another day or two car rental. Plus the pita factor of it all.

A bigger battery pack means more cost and weight. Charging times at a small percentage of high end tesla superchargers are going down, but charging at home is still slow.

Right, as i said, slow. 200mi. Is 5 hours while sleeping or waiting around.

Spoken like a nyc guy. and i agree they suck for most city residents. As for the suburbs, most 'burb to city commutes are what, 10-30 mi.? Hardly an issue for an EV.

Not sure your point, because actual owners bought them because current EVs work for them of course. The point is they don't work for the majority of people, TODAY. Not saying they won't down the road.

Right because you only use the EV for 'errands'.

 

Well I could say the same thing for a lot of cars.

 

As time goes on the obstacles to EV ownership will continue to be chipped away. Longer range, faster charging, more access to charging. I think we can say these things have been moving in the right direction for years now, and there's no reason to think it won't continue. 100% adoption is probably not realistic, but it will continue growing.

My neighborhood in the far Philly suburbs has garages (common here) and Teslas are within most people's budget. I would estimate about 10% of homes in my neighborhood have a Tesla and an ICE like an SUV or minivan. Not getting gas, especially in the winter, was a big draw for my wife. We take it whenever possible, but have an SUV. It's all about what is most convenient. EVs are more convenient most of the time. Some people are really overselling the range anxiety. Once you have the car, you learn its limitations and know what to expect.

Most of your driving is in your own metro area. We go into Philly semi-regularly. I know I can cruise the highway at any speed I want and accelerate how I want in any weather, and not worry about the 75 mile round trip. So I don't worry. Anything longer than that is probably a once or twice a year thing, so we decide what makes sense.

For a short time I had a job with a 94 mile round trip commute. It was terrible and I only lasted a short time, but I 100% would have gotten an EV if I stayed with it. Remembering to fill up every 3-4 days was awful. Oil changes were 5k miles on my car and they came up quick, too.
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If you can't wait for a 200 mile charge, you can always go to a Supercharger and wait 20 minutes. The new Hyundai Ioniq can charge from 20-80% in about 18 minutes which is pretty impressive. I guess the closest car to your LC as an EV would be that new Audi Etron GT. The range is the only issue with that thing but will probably be addressed as pack prices get cheaper.

The other issue with EVs is towing...range gets hit pretty hard with any amount of towing. That alone will keep gasoline and diesel available for a long time until you get solid state perfected. In 10 years, we hopefully would have fully commercialized solid state batteries which will negate a lot of the disadvantages as the batteries don't get impacted by extreme cold/heat and charge much faster while being much lighter. EVs are going to get dramatically better while ICE has reached its evolutionary limit.

 

I'm not sold on solid state. I'll believe it when I see it. Companies like Fisker only make it worse.

https://electrek.co/2021/03/01/fiske...-breakthrough/

 

Its going to take way more R&D than companies like Fisker can muster. Its going to be a concerted effort on all big players to make incremental breakthroughs to lead to commercialized solid state. In the meantime, the current technology is being evolved and improved like the 4680 cell. Until the point of mass adoption, I'll just enjoy zipping around slower ICE cars all day

 

Errands and basically all daily life needs that aren't long distance like a 100+ mile one way drive, of which we do maybe 2 times a year?

 

i'm sure there's lots where you are. in my town, there's 1 (with a few bays but each time i've been by, all are in use!). must be really irritating to get to the supercharge you need to get charged at only to find you have to wait for it to even be available before you can charge.

i bought the LC partly because it's NOT an EV and especially because it's NOTHING like a Tesla inside. the last of a dying breed of naturally aspirated v8's with no engine start/stop that make an awesome sound while accelerating and yet are exquisite inside (and outside)
anyway, i have an suv now as well (santa fe calligraphy) for work duties. a model Y would have done the job too, but for the reasons i've mentioned (quality and cereal box cheap and boring interior) no interest.

yup, i went over that in first post, so yes, i agree, having an ICE car in addition to an EV *right now* is the way to go.

and i agree with the many comments here that in time, EVs are improving rapidly in capabilities and range of options, and current issues will be non-issues in 5-10 years.