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      02-20-2020, 09:42 AM   #14
mkoesel
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Drives: No BMW for now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Salty Dog View Post
So this may be a big stumbling block that will slow EV's from taking market share anytime soon. There are fanboys out there that seem to think that in the next 5 years they will be the majority of car sales, there are so many logistical problem to overcome that it's going to take decades before the majority of car sales are EV's.
Probably, yes.

The flip side of the coin is, how often do you really need to go a thousand miles in a day? Or even five hundred? And even when you do, do you really want to do it without stopping a few times to grab a meal, stretch your legs? The answers to those questions depend on the individual. I know that for me, if I take a road trip, I want to decide when I stop and for how long. If I want to stop only to refuel, then I expect I'll be able to do that. So for me, if I go on a long trip, I'm not taking an EV. Others are less particular.

However, there's a middling use case that your "fanboys" also tend to overlook. That is, I might have a busy day where I've got two, three, maybe even four stops I have to make after work, potentially all in different cities - maybe I've got to pickup something specific at a specialty store in this suburb, and then I've got my kids soccer game over there, and I've also got to drop off little Joey's friends after the game. Or, maybe its a weekend day and I've got a bunch of things I need to get done - who knows what. The miles add up, and I'm going to have to charge at some point, even if I have a 400 mile battery. This one, to me, is the biggest issue. Even if there were a charger on every corner, I'm busy, and I don't have time to wait around for the thing to charge.

The EV die-hards will say that the benefits of the EV are so great that these types of needs will be de-prioritized and expectations will change. Maybe I can do some sort of ZipCar thing on days like this, and then I just park the car with a dead battery, and pickup another one that's got a full charge. Or at the very least, maybe if I have these types of needs I can keep an ICE car in the stable for that situation, but I'll drive my EV most of the time. Or maybe secondary fuel cells become a thing for those occasional times I need to super quick turn-around (obvious major infrastructure demands for that, of course).

So that's where the real disconnect is in my mind. There's reality - there's what people want today - and right now driving an ICE can be thought of as "cheap" insurance to make sure I can cover all those scenarios. Even if (when, really) the EV costs the same as the ICE, you're still willing to pay for the peace of mind of knowing you aren't going to be f'd when you really need to be somewhere "right now". So it becomes more of a question of how much cheaper (TCO) does the EV have to be so that I start to relax my thinking, and lower my expectations? That's the part that the zealots argue is going to happen "soon". They believe that the EV's advantages (and as an EV owner, I know exactly what those are, and they are definitely compelling) are going to change the way people expect to be able to use their vehicles. I personally remain skeptical.
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