Kalispell MT to Minot ND -- 688 miles between chargers
Anything in Alaska that isn't along the route from Anchorage to Fairbanks
Much of Ontario 11
All of Newfoundland
Of course, they're not high traffic routes, but these are places you can still easily find gasoline.
There is still no widespread charging infra. Oh sure, there are chargers. If you're lucky and your town is on a state highway there might be one or two chargers in the entire town — their purpose being so visitors don't become stranded.
Outside of cities, they are not there in sufficient quantity for widespread adoption.
The apartment problem has not been solved either, and people do not have the time in their lives to dedicate to charging at a shared public charger.
Europe still loves its compact manual transmission cars; but what we may see is a transition away from diesel to petrol vehicles strictly for cost reasons.
this looms much larger in the imagination than in reality given that the average urban European drives about 9-15km per day. If you're living in a space where charging space is in short supply you in all likelihood drive so little you maybe need to charge 3 times per month.
History may look back on them as having done rather a lot to move the world off of fossil fuels.
It'll kill them, the Big 3 should be losing their everloving minds over it.
I could do it in a 2002 Jetta. Why can’t I do it in a vehicle 25 years newer?
Like I said though, the whole convenience isn’t just single trip range.
If there's a charger close enough to a restaurant you'll eat at, that sounds convenient, and I've seen a lot more chargers on my long distance drives... but usually not at the restaurants I want to go to.
Now I am stuck in line ups for gas because I can’t decide I don’t need it. This is true even just around town.
Maybe it’s a first world issue. It gets better all the time though. Maybe next car.
Not if you have the right plumbing and a bottle with you.
I've also been on 24+ hour trips where we switched off drivers every 6 hours or so. Stopping too long for too many times on a trip like that adds up.
This attitude of dictating others' car needs for them is one of the biggest hindrances to EV adoption and is also why rolling back CAFE regulations is going to be more popular than you think it is.
The general public doesn't like being told what to do.
With a 30 year mortgage the $56K base model payments could be doable.
My tesla goes 3 hours at 80mph. I can get to any charger I need. There are considerably more than I ever imagined.
Unpredictable closures of highways can happen in the middle of nowhere after you’ve already been driving for 3 hours. I’ve had unplanned detours of up to 150 miles more than once. It is more common than people expect.
There are stretches of highway where it is 100+ miles between gas stations, never mind chargers, so it becomes a range risk even for ICE cars. I’m not the OP but when I’m driving in that part of North America I try to keep my range above 200 miles for this reason. It has saved me from being stranded more than once.
Alternatively, a backup plan for people with experience in those areas is to use ranch and forestry trails to route around the highway closures if feasible. This requires a vehicle suitable for that terrain. Few if any EVs are.
That said, most Americans rarely do long-haul driving in the backwaters of the American West. But if you do it enough, high ground clearance and reliable 400+ miles range in all weather conditions is a safety requirement.
The only reason I don’t have an EV is that most of my driving miles are like that. I don’t drive in the city where I live. No EV currently made credibly delivers that kind of performance but a lot of cheap ICE vehicles do.
Eventually EVs will get there but they aren’t there today.
A big step up from my old Ford fiesta, just look for the deals
https://movingtotheuk.co.uk/cost-of-living-in-the-uk/average...
> My Hyundai Kona EV (64kWh) (2022 plate) was £18K
Completely fkn tone deaf.
Also, EVs have been around for quite a few years now so it is no longer necessary to buy them new.
https://www.acea.auto/publication/report-vehicles-on-europea...
What do you do when, say, the insulation on the motor’s windings disintegrates over night on a whole production run of thousands of cars.
Or the batteries turn out to a fail at some yet to be revealed number of charge cycles.
ICE engines eat themselves in many more different kinds of weird ways: timing chains and belts, coolant leaks, any number of problems with valves and actuators. They're extraordinarily complex devices and it's a testament to engineering genius (and persistence) that we've made them this reliable. But they fail much more often than batteries or motors. They have many more moving parts. It's just the devil we know.
I've got two EVs. Basically zero problems. I've known one or two people who have had issues, but never with the drive train. Always something dumb like the "infotainment system" or (for a Tesla owning friend) stupid buzzing and vibration they couldn't make go away and stupid problems with door handles.
The Tesla weirdness is part of why I went with Nissans. They're 100% normal cars except for the electric drive train. All the other parts can be purchased at AutoZone and everything else can be worked on by a normal mechanic.
There's some mechanics in my area that have been learning how to do stuff with EVs like aftermarket battery upgrades on older models, but it's a bit expensive. Mine are 5 and 13 years old respectively and both batteries are fine. The 5yo one is the same as the day it was bought. The latter's lost some capacity but still very usable as a city car.
In the US Electric vehicles are easier for those who can park a car next to an outlet they own. We have a lot more suburbia with people owning their own charging.
You can charge your car at home on a simple reinforced 230V socket. Even city car which should be bad for this purpose have at least 200km of range.
kristianp•2h ago
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felixfurtak•20m ago