EV charging in the US is broken — can it be fixed?
Och, I agree with you IF it truly were to take someone an hour to drive to a charger, and wait their turn, then very few if any reasonable person would sign up for that. I sure wouldn't. Except your argument is flawed. It DOES NOT take a one-hour drive out of your way, so 2-hour roundtrip is what you're saying, to charge.
Chargers are strategically located. Tesla does this, as well as Electrify America, and that's not counting the thousands of other chargers from EVgo, ChargePoint, and the like. The folks buying EVs today recognize that their predominant charging needs will be met at home, overnight. Some even benefit from free charging at work, such as myself (back when we went to the office). Then there are also charging options, sometimes also free, at grocery stores and shopping centers when you're running errands. The situations where you're mostly concerned with are on long road trips. Let's face it, road tripping is a much smaller percentage of your overall annual car use. Take an ICE car for your road trips if that suits you, but it's also easily accomplished with an EV with some planning and preparation. On those same road trips an EV owner may even benefit from free charging at the hotel.
We can choose to call it "rationing" and put a negative spin on it but rationing is also common in stores when they limit you to one or two of popular items to better serve more customers.
Chargers are strategically located. Tesla does this, as well as Electrify America, and that's not counting the thousands of other chargers from EVgo, ChargePoint, and the like. The folks buying EVs today recognize that their predominant charging needs will be met at home, overnight. Some even benefit from free charging at work, such as myself (back when we went to the office). Then there are also charging options, sometimes also free, at grocery stores and shopping centers when you're running errands. The situations where you're mostly concerned with are on long road trips. Let's face it, road tripping is a much smaller percentage of your overall annual car use. Take an ICE car for your road trips if that suits you, but it's also easily accomplished with an EV with some planning and preparation. On those same road trips an EV owner may even benefit from free charging at the hotel.
We can choose to call it "rationing" and put a negative spin on it but rationing is also common in stores when they limit you to one or two of popular items to better serve more customers.
But even more important, people that don't have the ability to charge at home, it would be a major inconvenience for them to take a special trip to a charge station, wasting a bunch of time, instead of just fueling up with gas that is available everywhere on their routes.
Lexus Test Driver
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 7,460
Likes: 232
From: CA
Originally Posted by LeX2K
We have established over and over that electric vehicles are not for everyone. If you want a petrol car there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of choices.
Completely agree. To say there is no advantage to EVs is laughable. I say let IcE and EV compete in the marketplace and I have no doubt in my mind that EVs will easily win when infrastructure and battery improvement enable the 10 min charge with 400 miles of range. For now, EVs don't make sense for a lot of people but for those that have charging at home and good access to infrastructure like California, EVs are far better for most daily needs.
You can't just view the 10 min/400 miles as "spherical in a vacuum". There needs to be robust access to it. If someone needs to drive out of the way to get to such charger, and then wait in line for a bunch of other people, then what good is it? And there are way too many obstacles in building such infrastructure.
Lexus Test Driver
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 7,460
Likes: 232
From: CA
Originally Posted by Och
You can't just view the 10 min/400 miles as "spherical in a vacuum". There needs to be robust access to it. If someone needs to drive out of the way to get to such charger, and then wait in line for a bunch of other people, then what good is it? And there are way too many obstacles in building such infrastructure.
Lexus Fanatic
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 35,487
Likes: 386
From: ON/NY
However USA is not the great country it once was, and when it comes to public infrastructure projects China is clearly way ahead of us.
I think it has already won although the u.s. still possesses the force to destroy the world if it wants to.
China is investing (buying) businesses and resources ALL over the world. It has a strategic plan. It has a booming economy. It has talent and expertise (home grown and stolen). It has 20% of the world's population. It crushes dissent (not that i care for that, but the country at least isn't debating 'microaggressions').
China has now landed on mars and on the far side of the moon (one wonders what they're up to there).
Some 30 yrs ago i felt china would have it all by 2050. I still feel that way.
China is investing (buying) businesses and resources ALL over the world. It has a strategic plan. It has a booming economy. It has talent and expertise (home grown and stolen). It has 20% of the world's population. It crushes dissent (not that i care for that, but the country at least isn't debating 'microaggressions').
China has now landed on mars and on the far side of the moon (one wonders what they're up to there).
Some 30 yrs ago i felt china would have it all by 2050. I still feel that way.
I think it has already won although the u.s. still possesses the force to destroy the world if it wants to.
China is investing (buying) businesses and resources ALL over the world. It has a strategic plan. It has a booming economy. It has talent and expertise (home grown and stolen). It has 20% of the world's population. It crushes dissent (not that i care for that, but the country at least isn't debating 'microaggressions').
China has now landed on mars and on the far side of the moon (one wonders what they're up to there).
Some 30 yrs ago i felt china would have it all by 2050. I still feel that way.
China is investing (buying) businesses and resources ALL over the world. It has a strategic plan. It has a booming economy. It has talent and expertise (home grown and stolen). It has 20% of the world's population. It crushes dissent (not that i care for that, but the country at least isn't debating 'microaggressions').
China has now landed on mars and on the far side of the moon (one wonders what they're up to there).
Some 30 yrs ago i felt china would have it all by 2050. I still feel that way.
The government of Norway, after promoting EVs is now asking citizen not to charge them at certain times.
https://driving.ca/features/feature-...oo-many-teslas
And on a side note, some bad new for Tesla out of Norway.
Tesla is found guilty of throttling charging speed, asked to pay $16,000 to thousands of owners
The vice-president of the country’s state-owned power grid asked all Norwegians to stop charging their electric cars. More specifically, Gunnar Løvås, executive VP of systems and marketing at Statnett, told Norway’s nrk (think our CBC) that, with Norwegians using a total of 25.1 gigawatts of electricity — a new record — between 8:00 am and 9:00 am on February 4, “We really want people not to charge or heat their electric car between eight and nine in the morning.” In fact, according to Norway’s E24 news, the strain on the national grid was so great that the average cost for electricity in Norway ballooned some 600 per cent that Thursday morning
And on a side note, some bad new for Tesla out of Norway.
Tesla is found guilty of throttling charging speed, asked to pay $16,000 to thousands of owners
Last edited by bitkahuna; Jun 1, 2021 at 05:59 AM.
CL Community Team
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 17,332
Likes: 211
From: Miami, Florida
China, in one month, December 2020, installed more charging stations than there were in the entire U.S. Sales of EVs are soaring there, and exports growing. They soon will be producing the lowest price EVs in the world. One of the Scandinavian countries already sells more EVs than ICEs. Of course it won't happen immediately, but analysts anticipate a "hockey stick" pattern, where at some point EV use will soar.
Discussions here of the future of EVs are pointless. Anti-EVers may as well try to stop the tide from coming in. Their "reasons" EVs can't ever be successful are analogous to what the inventor of the paper copier encountered for about ten years as he tried to obtain backing from industry and investors: "There is no need for electronic "copiers', we have carbon paper," "Why would anyone want to copy anything? For what purpose?." "People won't pay for 'toner'. Carbon paper costs almost nothing;" "Office space is expensive, your machines take up a lot of room;" "Typewriters are so advanced secretaries can make ten or more carbon copies at once; and I can buy 50 typewriters for what one of your machines will cost," "My grandparents got through life without 'copiers,' my parents did, and I am doing just fine. Go back and invent something people will use." (A small blueprint company named "Haloid"--eventually XEROX-- finally took a chance.)
Discussions here of the future of EVs are pointless. Anti-EVers may as well try to stop the tide from coming in. Their "reasons" EVs can't ever be successful are analogous to what the inventor of the paper copier encountered for about ten years as he tried to obtain backing from industry and investors: "There is no need for electronic "copiers', we have carbon paper," "Why would anyone want to copy anything? For what purpose?." "People won't pay for 'toner'. Carbon paper costs almost nothing;" "Office space is expensive, your machines take up a lot of room;" "Typewriters are so advanced secretaries can make ten or more carbon copies at once; and I can buy 50 typewriters for what one of your machines will cost," "My grandparents got through life without 'copiers,' my parents did, and I am doing just fine. Go back and invent something people will use." (A small blueprint company named "Haloid"--eventually XEROX-- finally took a chance.)
