The fact that so many people don’t think about this or are unaware shows how well the propaganda worked.

Here is a car that is by far the easiest car you’ll ever own, the power to run it is the cheapest you’ll ever see, and 99% of your trips will be within one charge/tank meaning you’ll never need to worry about range ever - but the propaganda convinced them all that that’s a deal breaker.

As an EV owner the road trips we take are the vast minority of driving anymore. When we do there are options.

• plan out your route and stops. Requires maybe 15 minutes of planning before your trip. You pick a place with food nearby, get out for 30 minutes, stretch, eat your meal, and you are good until the next meal.
• if you are one of the 80% of households with 2 cars, take the other car for that roadtrip.
• get a rental car for your trip. (Remembering that a couple hundred for a rental car is vastly cheaper than paying for gas for 10+ years)

I can’t help but feel if EVs were invented first, convincing people to adopt gas cars would be impossible.

• “You mean I have to take it somewhere and stand outside every time I need energy?”
• “Why do I have to put all these fluids in it? And why does it need all these filters, brake pads, and maintenance?”
• “These things are so slow, why would you ever want to drive one?”
• “What do you mean I can’t turn on the climate control anytime I want? You mean I have to wait for this thing to heat up?!”

Ha, I never thought of it that way but yes, that tracks perfectly. The “inconveniences” of EVs aren’t worse than gas cars, it’s just that the gas car inconveniences are considered “normal” right now.

The saddest part is that EVs were invented first, but it was easier to tanker fuel everywhere, rather than building out the electric grid in low-density areas.

Tbf, battery tech was also shit back then.

Many people fail to appreciate just how much consumer battery technology has improved, in their lifetime.

Yes. And another thing people don’t appreciate is that gas always had the inherent advantage in that the oxidizing agent is just sitting around wherever you go. You don’t even need to carry all the chemical agents. If gas cars had to carry around their own oxidizer like rockets do, batteries would have surpassed them long ago.

First, just to be pedantic, EVs did exist first. They go all the way back to the early 1800s. But battery technology didn’t advance enough to make them a good option until recently, so your point remains.

I fully agree with you that the only thing keeping gasoline going is inertia. There have been parodies applying the same logic to other fields, like the gas-powered phone.

There’s a reason why 80%+ of EV owners say they’ll never go back, and a good chunk of the remainder are just waiting on the field to mature a bit.

EVs still use brake pads. lol

Also electric cars, gas, and steam has a bit of a format war in the 1890’s-1920’s or so, and people really did make a lot of these points back then. Unreliable and sometimes unsafe chargers (basically due to people not understanding electrical engineering as well as we do now) were a big part of why gasoline won out

EV brake pads can last a lot longer on one pedal cars. Henry Ford’s wife drove an EV, she hated his gasoline cars because they were loud, stunk, and could not be started by most women.

Chiming in from experience, our EVs brake pads were rusting faster than they were wearing down. We bought used, so maybe the previous climate was humid, but around 80k miles may have been their first change.

Many (most?) EVs now periodically apply friction brakes to reduce corrosion issues. If an EV doesn’t have it, you can do it manually.

EVs still use brake pads. lol

not really. almost all EV breaking is regen, unless you drive like shit.

“those fluid is VERY flammable, it’s insane people wanted to sit above one”

“it stink when it’s running.”

“leave it running in a closed garage and it will kill you in minutes with poison gas”

“the wear and tear from containing thousands of internal explosions will inevitably wear parts down over time.”

Also, that place is disgusting and you have to step over the rotting corpse of 600 soft drinks poured out next to the pump, then touch a handle which is visibly soiled and often sticky, and then you will probably smell like gas for at least the next 20 minutes.

Wait, since when did electric cars stop having brakes?

1 pedal driving doesn’t use brake pads to slow down your car. You still have brakes in case of an emergency, but if you’re using them enough to wear out your brake pads then you’re doing something wrong. As someone else pointed out, you’re much more likely to rust off your brake pads rather than wear them out.

The amount of braking force that you can apply with that is relatively small, so if you want to either brake quickly or come to a complete stop, you’ll still use the actual brakes. While your brake pads would last longer than typical car, they would still need wear down.

I can vouch for this 100%. Have had an electric vehicle for 6 months now.

The vast majority of my charging has been done at home on 120v. Granted, my wife and I both work from home most of the week and have short commutes. Our grocery store has free 240v charging so I top up while I shop.

We took one long trip in those 6 months and rented cars for the drive to/from and used public transit while we were there.

I used a fast charger for the first time this weekend to drop off a kid at the grandparents a couple hours away on Friday and then picked them up in Sunday. Didn’t have enough time between trips for the trickle charge to leave me in a comfortable range. 20 minute fast charge did the job for about $15.

Requires maybe 15 minutes of planning before your trip. You pick a place with food nearby, get out for 30 minutes, stretch, eat your meal, and you are good until the next meal.

It assumes when you want to eat coincides with when you need to charge. It assumes there’s something you want to eat within walking distance of the charging station. Also assumes you eat as often as you charge. I almost never find any of those to be true.

Good thing I wrote up two other options if it doesn’t work for you. It works perfectly fine on our car trips.

And what will happen to all those gas stations when we are at 90% EVs adoption, as is the goal? Where will you find a gas car to rent? How many gas stations will be left? EVs still need to be much faster at charging if we are going for high adoption

Is your argument both in the same breath that EVs will catch on too quick that all gas stations will disappear in a matter of days and also that EV adoption will not catch on quick enough because charging is too slow?

I want EVs, but they’re simply not good enough yet. They need to be much better before they can reach 90% adoption

simply not good enough yet

This thread is full of people telling you the opposite. I own an EV and am telling you it’s the best car I’ve ever had and will never go back. If you don’t believe they’re good enough then you need to analyze why you believe that, because it’s simply not true. If you want to ask me questions about what they are actually like, feel free, but I won’t sit here and help you “feel” better about them when all the facts show that they’re great vehicles to own.

This thread is full of delusional evangelists who are out of touch with what most people actually think about EVs. I owned an EVs for 10 years and the range anxiety is not just some imaginary mental block, it’s a real issue that isn’t going to be solved anytime soon. I tell you this from first hand experience

it’s literally called anxiety, it’s a personal issue. We don’t call a small tank “tank anxiety”. I get a week’s worth of commuting out of a single charge. If you owned one for 10 years then you know you can charge at home, and unless you’re driving literally the max every day, which right now is about 250 miles every day, then range anxiety is a non issue because you just plug it in when you get home.

If you are worried about road trips, then you need to analyze your personal road trip habits. I already spoke elsewhere in this post about options if you roadtrip, but even frequently I highly doubt it’s more than 1% of your total trips.

I’m not willing to compromise on my road trip plans. The car can either handle the trip or not. And right now there doesn’t exist an EV that can

So we’re just going through the standard propaganda excuses. Since apparently we’re hung up on the probably 1% of driving you do (where you go more than 250 miles in a single day), let’s refer to what I already said above you:

As an EV owner the road trips we take are the vast minority of driving anymore. When we do there are options.

• plan out your route and stops. Requires maybe 15 minutes of planning before your trip. You pick a place with food nearby, get out for 30 minutes, stretch, eat your meal, and you are good until the next meal.
• if you are one of the 80% of households with 2 cars, take the other car for that roadtrip.
• get a rental car for your trip. (Remembering that a couple hundred for a rental car is vastly cheaper than paying for gas for 10+ years)

Your “compromise” feelings are unjustified. Even if you it’s just iMpOsSiBLe to drive your EV on a road trip (it’s not) you can do other things. Like I said, if you’re one of the 80% of North American households who own 2 cars you could take the EV for 99% of your trips, and on the 1% road trips you could… take the other car. If you are like me and only own one car you still have the option to rent a car.

Renting a car is relatively cheap and has the added bonus of not wearing down your car with added miles. Now I lived in the Midwest, I remember family car trips that were long. Driving over multiple states in one day. Those trips were rare, thinking once every few years rare. Maybe once a year. Numbers just make sense, a rental car for that infrequent of a trip is cheaper.

And that’s all assuming that again you just cannot take your EV on a road trip. Which is absolutely false. I did a 800 mile roadtrip just earlier this year.

You call them excuses when you are simply unwilling to accept the reason.

Since apparently we’re hung up on the probably 1% of driving you do (where you go more than 250 miles in a single day)

No you don’t need it 99% of the time, but in that 1% when you need it, you really need it. 99% simply isn’t enough because that 1% is really important.

Time on a road trip is way more important than time in regular drives. I don’t mind being 30min late getting back home from work, that happens all the time from traffic, but 30min late on a roadtrip means you’re missing daylight, or an appointment, or that restaurant you really wanted to try is closed. These are not imaginary hypotheticals, all of these situations have regularly happened to me even with gas cars.

plan out your route and stops. Requires maybe 15 minutes of planning before your trip. You pick a place with food nearby, get out for 30 minutes, stretch, eat your meal, and you are good until the next meal.

You say this like this is trivial burden. It is not. The mental load of constantly needing to plan stops around fueling is a significant difference from gas cars in experience and is a significant barrier to adoption. This is a real problem and must be overcome in the future if we are to reach higher EV adoption.

if you are one of the 80% of households with 2 cars, take the other car for that roadtrip.

We are not talking about today, we are talking about increasing EV adoption, to say 90-100%. If 80% of households have a gas car, you’re not getting there.

get a rental car for your trip. (Remembering that a couple hundred for a rental car is vastly cheaper than paying for gas for 10+ years)

Again, we are not talking about today, we are talking about a future where EV adoption is 90-100%. How many gas stations will remain in that future?

Since apparently we’re hung up on the probably 1% of driving you do (where you go more than 250 miles in a single day), let’s refer to what I already said above you:

This has gone in a full circle now, because this one was your first comment or something. I’m not arguing in circles. I’ve addressed everything you brought up and now you’re just back to your first “argument”.

Your worries are over a future that you are predicting from… feelings it seems like. Taking all the worst conjured possibilities and rolling them up, like “there won’t be any gas stations” but somehow charging infrastructure and speed also hasn’t improved? What is your mind just imagining the lone gas station in the dusty town, closed forever, with a tumbleweed because of shakes fists EVs?

Like I said earlier, I’m dealing in facts right now, I’m not arguing with emotions or a future that you’ve made up for yourself with no backing.

The mental load of constantly needing to plan stops around fueling

Freaking, man I don’t even know. If planning ahead is a cognitive load on you, we don’t have much else to talk about.

EVs are perfectly fine, even with current charging speeds. the problem is not fast charging but AC charging coverage. everyone should be able to charge their cars at home or work.

The thing with charging times is mostly anxiety based on fear of the unknown rather than anything tangible

okay so a few times a year your meal isn’t exactly when you want to eat. or you can’t eat exactly what you want to eat.

i’ll take that over having to go to a gas station weekly to fill up and pay $50 for the privilege.

After 100k miles in an EV, road trips add about 20 minutes for every every 3 hours of driving. That’s all. It’s basically a trivial difference which gets statistically lost in the noise of traffic variability. If this causes an issue, it’s a lack of prior planning.

I fully agree with you, but you should check out the rest off this thread. I have someone who literally said:

I’m not willing to compromise on my road trip plans.

I’m unwilling to plan out two 20 minute stops in my day long road trip that happens maybe once or twice a year in order to have the lowest maintenance lowest fuel cost vehicle I have ever owned. Not to mention the other two options if you seriously cannot do it. People are so carbrained/gas brained I just can’t even. I will never go back to owning an ICE vehicle, literally why would you?

Yep, though that depends on destination in some regions. When my partner and I planned our trip to their parents’ place, what’s normally a 9 hour drive turned into a 13 hour one because we ended up having to charge up to 100% from 5% for one of the intervals due to lack of CCS stations, which was nearly a 60-70 minute charge each way.

That may have changed in the intervening year, and I’d love to have that drive only extended ~1hr instead because we can do ~15% -> 80% charging intervals instead.

A year later, we still haven’t even gotten a 240V fast charger at home. Still just pluggin’ in to the old wall with a regular old cord. We still manage to get all the charging we need done during the cheap-metered hours, too.

I laugh when I think back to buying the EV. I was so panicked about getting fast charger as soon as possible. I thought the wall plug would get us through the weekend while we tried to find an available electrician, but then we’d get desperate. It just never happened.

Speed doesn’t matter as much if you’re going to be parked for half the day or overnight.

The apartment complex and workplace chargers I’ve seen all limit how long you’re allowed to leave your car parked at them. I suppose speed doesn’t matter in the sense that having to move your car 20 minutes later isn’t much less annoying than having to move it 4 hours later. Still, I wouldn’t want an EV without my own garage even if I never went on road trips. It seems like a pain.

Considering how inexpensive it is to put in a 30A, 50A, or 60A circuit, and how modern L2 chargers can both downrate dynamically and be activated with simple apps or cards, this is not a difficult problem to solve.

Then you have where my apt had another company put in and manage the charges but they charge 15 cents more a kw then the fast charger around the corner.

I don’t mind sitting every so often in the morning drinking some tea while charging but it would be nice if it’s faster

Ugh, greedy landlords.

Considering how inexpensive it is to put in a 30A, 50A, or 60A circuit

I have a 50A circuit that i just installed. And previously installed a 30A circuit at my last house. It’s not inexpensive. A 50A breaker and 30 feet of 6/2 Romex with ground costs $240. Then add in a 40A capable Grizzl-E Classic for another $299 and you’re on your way to $600.

If you’re like me, you also buy conduit for the wiring in the garage to keep it dry/protected and a receptacle rather than hardwiring to allow for a little more flexibility.

Easy, yes. Cheap, no.

That’s only $10/mo over a 5 year period.

Great which contractor offers those terms?

I have a 50a charger installed but holy hell this comment is silly.

You still have to pay up front for the charger+wiring. That can be a deal breaker for many, and the point is apartments are much harder as most don’t offer any electricity for even l1 charging

Think like a business and it makes sense.

Yeah, that’d be nice if people could take on debt and adjust cash flows like a business, but a lot of people don’t have the financial flexibility to spend $600 in a lump payment. That’s why people keep bringing up 60+ percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. I’m fortunate enough to be able to make those types of purchases a couple times a year, but I know my privilege is not the norm.

The best someone may be able to do is 12mo financing on a new credit card with 0% apr, but miss a payment and its 25% interest. If they even get approved.

I’m talking about apartments and workplaces.

Again most people can’t afford the up front cost.

Its expensive to be poor, and most people are poor

They are already in debt paying huge amount of interest monthly.

I like being able to charge at home and it’s a luxury I know not everyone gets.

For the numbers:

Paying off a $600 charge at $10/month like you suggested would take almost 13 years and cost over $900 in interest at a 18% apr

So you are spending almost 50% more on interest than the original charge. So 150% more expensive at 1500 vs 600.

For a 5 year payoff you have to spend just over $15/month but still are paying over $300 in interest. That’s now over $900 total or 50% more expensive because you can’t afford the up front cost.

Apartments would pay for it, not individuals. Having EV chargers would be a selling point, allowing higher rent.

Poor people are generally not driving EVs yet.

That’s the thing, they should be. They are much cheaper especially taking into account less maintenance.

Only $600??? That’s cheap as hell! I thought you were going to say $2k at the absolute lowest

You do not want 50A 240V circuit built cheap, because of the circuits arcs, the house will burn down. The proper way to do it is a pony box for the charger circuit only, and special plug hardware designed for 100% duty cycles, not clothes dryers. States haven’t even updated codes for EV charge circuits.

That’s a matter of location I guess. Here you sometimes have to pay a small extra fee to keep it there the whole day. But that may be also because there are plenty of public chargers around

That is an idealistic way to look at it. In practice, charging anytime a car is parked is expensive:

1. Utility companies will often charge a premium on electricity spent during business hours. This alone makes it uneconomical to charge the car by day (eg while you’re at work).

2. Charging on public infrastructure will often include a “convenience premium” - electricity will be more expensive than charging at home.

3. A lot of the time charging will be limited by time, thus requiring you to go out of the office and move your car in the middle of work. Not possible for everyone.

4. My experience is that “energy providers” discovered subscriptions. And charging “out of network” is mor expensive - especially important when traveling.

Reality is that with an EV the only economical approach *today * is:

• to charge it at home, at night
• hopefully produce your own electricity, if you can (photovoltaic + battery)
• use quick charge stations for longer drives

If you can’t charge it at home (eg you live in a flat or an apartment complex), you’re basically effed.

1. Depends on your utility plan and if it’s time based or not. The chargers at work are the same price from 7:00 to 22:00.
2. Yes
3. Depends on the office. Plenty of office parks don’t require you to move.
4. I’ve avoided (as best I can) the “energy providers” that charge and extra fee just to charge. Obligatory fuck ChargePoint.

I can’t charge at home (fuck you NJ) but still have two EVs that I take to the single public charger (limited to 2 hours) nearby because fuck gas powered cars.

Maybe next time don’t make sweeping generalizations about things you personally haven’t experienced.

Answers “possibly” or just straight up “yes” to literally every point, and then criticizes them for generalizing.

While EVs are 100% the way to go, acting as though the very real problems and drawbacks faced by real people don’t exist is disingenuous and just gives anti-EV people more ammo.

Problems exist, sure. But not those.

Then why were your answers “Possibly, Yes, Possibly, Yes”?

The problems being fixable by legislation a) doesn’t make them not problems and b) doesn’t mean they’ll actually be fixed by legislation.

Those were my answers because those were my answers.

Industrial electricity prices are a lot more complicated than residential. You basically get the price set by your highest demand/lowest supply. Meaning you charging your car could hike their rates.

Wh do you assume this is not from personal experience?

These are all actual facts here in Europe.

In other words: not all countries are the same.

Yeah EVs seem almost non-viable if you live in an apartment complex right now, which is a shame. At least where I am

Most EVs charge at home doesn’t mean it’s not cheaper than fossil fuel even using the charger down the road. As for convenience, using a public charger is like pouring fuel in at the petrol station.

You can literally have just a simple wall plug and charge a car. It doesn’t need to be a fitted wall-mounted charging box. Yes, it is much slower and takes 24+ hours to charge the car completely but most people don’t actually use much of their battery per day anyway so if you plug in every night when you get home, you’re not going to have a problem for the majority of the time. And those are a very cheap socket run that an apartment’s body corporate could/should install.

I have been an EV owner since 2018 and I have never had a “level 2” charger installed. I’ve been fine with just plugging into the wall. Now, granted, my cars have been 80-125 mile range vehicles. But it’s been fine.

Not OP, but nearly every apartment complex I’ve ever been to has absolutely 0 electricity to a surface lot, and very limited/restricted access in a garage. And no apartment managers are going to change that unless there’s money to be made from it.

Fortunately, newer buildings are now including some public charging stations, presumably getting a portion of the sales.

Theres no external outlets just out in the parking lot in my complex. You’d have to run an extension cord out a door or window all the time, which would leave them cracked, and I live on the third floor

More progress really needs to be made on infrastructure for a lot, probably the majority of apartment complex dwellers

All doable… we can route power easily enough to about any place on this planet

I agree :) all fixable problems, just things that will take time and will progress naturally as electric cars become more and more commonplace

Especially once EVs start to become like a relevant part of the used market, since I think that makes up the bulk of cars at a lot of complexes. Most of the cars parked out by mine aren’t new

Which part of “apartment complex” did you misunderstand

I live in an apartment and can neither charge at home nor at work. I just charge when I go grocery shopping. It’s absolutely viable.

When we made laws for handicap parking, there was handicap parking everywhere, overnight.

the vast majority of their charging at home or at their destination.

Absolutely true, which is also why I found it extremely annoying when reviewers began claiming that range wasn’t as important as fast charging speeds in daily use. Luckily most have stopped that shit, probably realizing there’s a reason most people want good range, and this is one of them. Also charging at home/destination cost way less than using a fast charger, and it’s better for battery life too.

This, and the cheapest charging option will always be at home.

If you can’t charge at home, an EV is not worth the additional cost vs a combustion or hybrid.

Ignoring the better driving comfort of an ev, which is valuable on its own, it’s still much cheaper to charge on the go, than buying gas.

that’s not always true, its free at my workplace I just need to unplug every two hours. They do that so people don’t sit on the chargers all day. I know people without home charging, for them its 6kw charging at work, public parking and a visit to a fast charger when needed. They say its still cheaper than gas.

That’s basically me.

No home charger because no off street parking and fuck NJ.

Amen. The building I work at, where there’s roughly about 100 people each day, including police department and local part of ministry’s office has exactly ONE charging point built last year. One.

My EV’s getting older now, but it’ll still do 400+km if I charge it fully overnight. If we’re doing a road trip it’s time for a burger and to stretch ones legs when it’s getting low anyways. Eat my food, get some rest and 20-30 minutes later I’m ready to go again.

I was sceptical before buying it, but I will never buy a gas car again. And I work in oil and gas

One doesn’t have anything to do with the other. Fast chargers ARE for road trips. And we can improve them irrespective of L2 chargers. Where are you seeing “messaging” that suggests otherwise?

It’s for all the people that wont accept that must be able to charge to full at any moment regardless that they usually wont have to because its already full from being charged at home/work etc

Even disregarding the fact that reliable electric cars are much more expensive secondhand than comparable ICE cars, there’s still a significant economic barrier to owning one. It’s significantly more difficult to effectively own an electric car if you have an apartment, or live in a house that only has street side parking, or live in a house that has a landlord that’s not willing to install an expensive electric car charger, which covers the vast majority of lower income housing.