The reality: “Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away,” Cutler said.
I, in fact, do exactly that. I pull up in front of the pump, get out, stick my card in, fill up, and leave. It’s been over ten years since I went inside the store at a gas station, there’s nothing in there I want to buy.
However, needing to spend half an hour recharging if I were on a road trip would be fine, because on a road trip I would stop for a break from driving in any case. But, I almost never go on road trips, and 99.9% of my trips around town would be well within one charge, which I could do at home.
So, while I agree that charging doesn’t need to be as fast as gas, it’s not because of his stated reason.
Definitely.
Its ignoring that people’s use of their personal vehicle is actually for work purposes, commuting; and guess what? People don’t like to commute and try to get it down as quickly as possible.
His situation does work for people on road trips, but ignores the daily lives and routine of everybody that works for money.
Another instance of CEOs having immense privilege and literally cannot fathom or understand how normal people operate. I mean, just go stand outside a 7/11 for 30 minutes and start counting how many people go inside vs getting their gas and go.
I would like it to be as fast as gas. But, yeah, if you can walk from the charger to a restroom and maybe grab some food, I really don’t care if it take 15-30 minutes to get back up to 80%.
I currently own a Volt and usually charge at home. My last road-trip OK->IA (and back a week later), I found it hard to find compatible charging stations so much so that I barely used them. On the way back, I did go out of my way to find one – the first one had no facilities at all (it was a dealer parking lot at the corner of two 5-lane stroads with no crosswalk signals), the second one was inaccessible behind a locked gate, the third one several blocks away from any facilities but close enough to walk to one restaurant.
I still plan to get an EV when I finally have to replace the Volt, but I gotta say the charging situation away from home is pretty bleak, IME. Maybe it’s better in different parts of the country. It is almost certainly better on DC charging; I found a few convenience store / gas station / fast food combination buildings that also had DC charging that I would have used if I could. (Volt only has AC charging.)
there’s a supermarket by me that has EV chargers for free while you shop. absolutely genius
Longer trips in EVs require one small reframing, at least when compared to how we used to do longer trips before.
In longer trips with an ICE, we would have a meal before the trip, then drive until the destination, and have a meal when arriving.
With an EV, you should plan to have a meal on the road, and charge while you eat.
I’ve had a few experiences with this recently on a 300k trip we do fairly regularly. We do it in an older EV with comparatively poor range, but still we get away with making one stop to eat and charge.
Alternatively, take smaller stops more often. It’s so much better to stop every 100km for like 15 minutes to walk around, get a pee break, or whatever, than to endure 4 hours of sitting in one go.
where are there gas stations, let alone EV chargers every 100km?
Anywhere where people live. Which is, incidentally, where people are.
That explains the lack of chargers in the Hoh Rain Forest. I thought I was going fucking nuts!
Cars go through places where people don’t live, and that is one of the best usages for cars.
That’s the magical part of population density. If a lot of people travel through the area, this area, almost by magic, develops facilities that cater to traveling people. If not a lot of people travel throuth the area, then, well, it’s not a lot of people so their experience and needs shouldn’t dictate how the rest of the world operates. The rural america from those states that nobody quite remembers the names of, in particular, is not representative even of the US as a thing, let alone the developed world.
Well in Germany you can charge at most gas stations along the highway nowadays. And for the off chance you can’t, there are still charging/routing apps.
where not?
Annoyingly, I’ve found that charging during meals does not work either. Your options are either AC charges, which are not fast enough to fill the battery over the course of a meal. Or DC fast chargers that will charge in ~20 minutes, give you a 10 minute grace, then start charging you an idling fee.
My i3 only has 200km on a good day. I truly don’t mind, even on the occasional long distance trip. I’ll drive slower (110 vs 120kph is almost negligible), take a break every 1 to 1.5 hours and just generally drive more aware and more relaxed. It’s what every driver should do, anyway.
From someone that actually uses an EV: I don’t even have a charger at home. I charge twice a month on a station that takes around 30~45m a session to 90%. You go for a nice coffee or light meal and it is charged when you come back.
ITT: Lots of people dont realize how infrequently you actually stop at a charger if you have charging at home or work.
Okay, now what about the people who don’t live in SFHs? I could charge at home most nights if I had an EV, but a lot of people literally can’t install chargers.
Of course your daily mileage comes into play… but
You don’t have to install a charger, if you can charge your laptop/phone at home you can charge your car at home.
It’s just an extension cord.
Of course this requires you to run the cord outside if you don’t have a garage but it’s not like you have to bury it or anything. Because again it’s just an extension cord.
And even if you want “fast” charging at home you aren’t really “installing” a charger you are just getting a 220v outlet installed in the US. If you have a central A/C unit or electric dryer as an example you already have this installed in your house you are just adding an additional outlet for ease of access.
The “real” fast chargers that are installed for public use are not being installed in your home because those are 480v or even 800v. Which is considered industrial use, as far as I am aware you can’t get that power connection in your garage because the infrastructure isn’t there.
So like, out my door and into the parking lot?
I’ll let my friends living in apartments know they can run an extension cord from the 5th floor then lol, I’m sure there’s nothing unsafe about that.
Daily mileage isn’t the only factor either. I’m not sure why I would pay 30k for a used EV if it costs almost the same to charge per 100km as a diesel car worth under 2k takes to refuel per 100 km but takes much more time to do so. EVs start making more sense for people in apartments when public fast charging is nearly free, like charging at home is.
Hey everyone with an electric car did you know you are wrong because if i follow this correctly.
1 .You can buy a 20 year old car for $2000. 2. This person knows someone who lives on the 5th floor.
Yeah it’s called individual choice. It’s not for everyone in every situation. Just like diesel versus gasoline or natural gas or walking or riding a bike or taking a bus.
But the point I made still stands you don’t “have” to install anything.
And yes I have seen people running cords out of windows from apartments. Is it the best option. No. Would I do it also no.
But there are options available.
Make the choice that works best for your situation.
If we’re going to ban fossil fuels 100%, we need EVs to work for everyone. If we don’t ban fossil fuels altogether, people can continue driving old cars which is bad. I know I will.
It’s so easy to install communal chargers, that no house has an excuse to not do it. It just needs to be normalised.
Here where I live, I don’t think there is a house with no ev charger at a parking space.
Since they installed chargers at my workplace roughly one year ago, I have stopped exactly 3 times to charge in a public charger:
First was when we had an issue with chargers the day before I was going on a 2 weeks holiday out of town.
Second was when I arrived to my holiday destination.
Third was the day we were going back home from the holiday destination after two weeks.
That’s about it in a whole year.
If you have a dedicated 220v outlet near your driveway or are willing to have a dedicated wire coming out of your home out of a garage or a janky window, if you don’t to drill into the siding and hard install the wire to the siding. My fiance’s aunt has a new Electric RAV 4, like the latest model and she has a 110v charger and it takes for fucking ever to charge. She gets frustrated when the charger isn’t back in when someone uses it because it takes for fucking ever.
Campsites usually have 110v and not 220v. If you want good charging speed you’re inevitably paying more for it. You can do the whole figuring out some clever way to utilize natural resources to charge an EV or have it set to a battery backup or something cute like that but even still that’s better for like if your typical way of charging isn’t working or unavailable.
Either way though, you’re not gonna get an EV to be effectively charged with any kind of speed with a 110v home charger. It could take an hour to get 5%. If you have one or know someone with an EV, you’ll know the actual struggle that people who switch from gas to electric go through, not just going along with the hive and hype.
Most trips don’t eat 100%, if your commute eats 10-40% of your battery 5% an hour on 110v at home is just fine.
Probably a lot better for the batteries too.
Significant difference between 220/240v and 110v
Yes. Because with an EV you live at the gas station.
People need to stop thinking about EVs like cars that need to be fueled. They’re more like phones that need to be charged.
And you know what they keep trying to do with phone batteries? Speed up charging time. They keep trying to find new novel ways of making a charger charge a phone from 0 to 100 in less than 5 mins.
You think they aren’t doing the same for EV’s?
owning a BYD EV here in Australia, 80% of my charging is at home, just plug in to a wall socket powered by mostly solar from my roof. 15% is destination charging eg when buying groceries, plug in, shop, unplug and go and only 5% is charging on a road trip.
I love how people looking into getting a car will go crazy over range. All the while they have not driven more than 100k in a single day in the last 5 years.
100k km is physically impossible to drive in a day, maybe you mean “in a single year”?
If you mean 100k meters (not sure why you just wouldn’t use km as an unit then), I have a few 200 km days a week, but the actual range anxiety comes from the fact that in the winter an EV loses a ton of range and if I need to use a public charger, I might as well just drive my current car instead of paying 15x as much to get into an used EV, since public charging is almost as expensive as diesel fuel.
Or only gone on trips that is longer than the range like 8 times last 5 years.
I really hope there will one day be a solution for people who don’t own detached houses.
Every single parking spot should have a charger. It will happen some day.
In my country we do have a ton of public chargers but car owners report that it’s more expensive than gas. You either have a way to charge at home or it’s just not worth it.
Depends on the gas prices, but yeah, even in the US often ‘fast chargers’ would be equivalent or even more expensive than gas.
If you take fast chargers with the milage most EVs get (roughly 2mi/kwh), the per kwh price needs to be roughly $0.35/kwh or lower for electric to be cheaper (home rates essentially across the US are lower than this), but fast chargers often climb to $0.45-0.55/kwh.
We don’t, I charge while shopping most of the time.
The reality: “Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away,” Cutler said.
Say what? Outside of a long road trip, that’s very much what I do every time. I haven’t been into the store at my gas station in years. I’m hardly alone, I see plenty of other people fill up and leave.
The “charging problem” is most completely addressed by doing less driving. Obviously.
Obviously you made the mistake of not being born wealthy. If you had just been born wealthy, you would realize that driving long distance is something you very rarely do, or when you can’t find a trustworthy peasant to ship/drive your vehicle to/from your summer home.
We just came back from a trip. Started with below 50 percent, first stop was a nice caffee for a second breakfast. Within 20 minutes, charge went up to 80, giving uns around 400 km range. The car was full before we even finished.
The planing simply changed. Instead of rushing through a gas stop, we prefer a route with places for a nice break. Or, in a pinch, nearly every McDonald’s now has a row of quick chargers.
It is becoming a non-issue.
Went to Italy…wanted to grab an Espresso… the car was at 80 percent before I even manage to get the cup in last my hand…
Literally my solution in a nutshell. I’ll take a longer trip with a nice place I can stop for an hour-ish, then move on.
Yeah, that statement makes little sense in context of ICE, but the point does kinda work for EV. Ideally, outside of road trips, you wouldn’t go to designated charging areas, but just charge where you’re going anyway. I usually charge at a supermarket
In the context of EVs, your daily grind refueling is a scenario that doesn’t really exist - and shouldn’t exist. Your weekly trip to the gas station should be replaced almost entirely with AC charging, either at home or at work. DC fast charging should only be used when you are driving an extended amount in a single day. And if you’ve been driving 200 miles that day, you probably need some food and a restroom.
Coincidentally, it solves one of the biggest (and least explainable) gaps on fast charging. If you make your regular rest/food stops the same thing as your charging stops, then you’ll spend very little extra time charging on a road trip. It’s always been weird to me that fast chargers have traditionally been nowhere near amenities like food and restrooms.
Yeah that sentence was bonkers. Like that’s exactly what most people do haha
Yeah, same for me. But it is true that it doesn’t necessarily apply when charging at home, overnight.
Lets say you have a 300mi range EV. that sounds great, until you realize you can’t actually use it all.
We like to save the bottom 20% for emergencies and battery longevity, and fast charging is too slow above 80% to be worth it, so effectively, on a road trip. only the 20%-80% range is usable. Your 300mi+ range just turned into 180mi of usable range. And then factor in ~10% battery degradation over time, or range reduction in winter conditions, and you could easily have as little as 150mi of actual usable range between charging stops. And that’s assuming the charging stations are perfectly spaced apart.
That’s only a little more than 2 hours at highway speeds. And that’s not along time to be driving, even for a single person. In gas cars, we will regularly do 3-4 hours without stopping at all. And if we do stop for a break, it’s rarely at gas stations or places with charging stations. Those are typically awful places to spend the limited amount of time you have on a trip.
In practice, the charging interval is far, far less than the ideal 300mi and far more frequent.
Where did you get the 10 % degradation from? Long time studies show way less, even with older models
https://insideevs.com/news/801624/sweden-batter-degradation-group-test/
My own vehicle. 14% battery degradation, 40% range reduction in winter
You will never get full range at cold temperatures.
There’s two kinds of people who comment on EV threads.
People who say stuff like this post, and people who actually own EVs. There is no overlap.
What a braindead take. I’ve owned an EV for 10 years, and this is all from first-hand experience. I will never take it on a roadtrip.
Nice try, BP
I used to think this way until I actually drove an EV long distance. This tech is mature and useful for road trips. Most people aren’t willing to drive 12+ hour days anyway and that’s the only real way to get a time advantage out of a gas car.
I used to believe the EV evangelists until I tried to drive EV on a road trip. I will never do it again. Why can’t anybody just admit that there are real downsides which sometimes become a deal breaker?
I guess different people work differently. I’m speaking from my direct experience; I was cynical as hell until I actually tried it, and it really wasn’t as bad as I expected.
Would I prefer an ICE car for a long distance road trip? Yes. Can I take an EV on a road trip and have a good time? Also yes. Was the EV cheaper than taking an ICE car an equivalent distance? Also yes.
I think the issue is like trucks in the USA. People buy what they think they need not what they actually they need and then underutilize it.
Speaking from embarassed experience, I live in the USA thought it would be OK for me to get a pickup truck because I literally do work in the trades. Even I underutilize it tbh, and I’m thinking about selling it. I mostly just drive it to and from work like any other car, and then move things around in the company vans, lol.
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.
This is fascinating to read because it’s completely the opposite of how I think.
If I was regularly 30 min late coming home from work I would scream. Nobody has time for that!
30 min late on vacation? Who cares? You can’t even plan any trip with that tight of tolerances, anyway. Too many factors beyond your control could delay you by more than 30 minutes, easily. As you say, this type of thing can happen even with gas cars, or trains, planes, boats, bicycles, etc.
And that 1% of the time is where renting is more effective perhaps even moreso with increasing gas costs
Most people aren’t willing to drive 12+ hour days
I like my roadtrip vacations. OTOH you can also rent for your yearly holiday, but this can get pretty expensive quickly.
Oh yeah, I regularly drive 14+ hour days myself. This is why I know that most people won’t, because most people act like I’m fucking crazy. Which is why I think most of them would do fine with an EV
I own an EV
I have never once paid to charge it at a charging station
If I want to go on a long trip like you suggest for a few days, I can hire a vehicle (hybrid, obvs) and still be so far ahead financially that I wouldn’t notice it
You and I have very different idea of what a road trip should be like
Yeah at tail end people are spending their free time in a widely different manners
That much driving sounds miserable
Sometimes you just have to do it
US people will only get out of their cars under threat, apparently.
Well, 3-4 hours without stopping is not only miserable, it is also unsafe.
Highway Hypnosis/ Road Hypnosis is real. In most driving manuals it’s recommend to take breaks and stretch.
Also… you can do this with most EVs already
Welcome to the US highway system.
My drive to the university from home was 152mi.
Who cares? I drive a BEV for 6 years now and charging definitely is a none issue.
The usable range is 10%-100%. Nobody starts an EV road trip with much less than 100%. Though you may consider cutting a mid trip fast charge somewhere around 90%. Usually for me that’s because I see that I can get to my destination without going up to 100%
Charging stations will eventually be spaced at close enough distances that you don’t have to think about where to stop. In a mature EV market there’s generally many more EV chargers than gas stations along a given route.
And if we do stop for a break, it’s rarely at gas stations
I’m not sure I’ve ever stopped at a gas station to fast charge. I stop at roadside McDonalds (we have kids), cafes, supermarkets (last stop before a trip to a cabin), etc.
How, in this day and age, could you not be aware that fast chargers are put up in more diverse places than gas stations? They’re not stinky. They don’t need to be separate from the businesses where car drivers want to spend their time.
I’ve stopped at a fast charger at a small cafe in the middle of nowhere on the top of a mountain, you could take a wonderful hike there while your car charges. You do know you can walk away from the car while it’s charging… right?
we will regularly do 3-4 hours without stopping at all
My trip to my family cabin is around 3 hours. And the last 30min is through an actually snowy dirt road up a steep climb. And I still have 40% or so left. With skis in the roof. So get outta here with your arm chair expertise.
Incidentally I don’t have to fast charge on this trip at all since we have electricity at the cabin. Super slow but I can get at least 80% which is plenty to get back.
Anyone still bringing up winter in an EV conversation should be laughed out of the room now that Norway is at near 100% market share. And no, you can’t use “Norway is small” as an argument. Road trips are common here to start with, every other family has a cabin in the mountains. But Norway is also part of Schengen. The borders in EU/Schengen are open just like the US. The first post I saw on my EV car models Facebook group was a person planning a trip to Croatia.
Nobody starts an EV road trip with much less than 100%.
That’s exactly the problem. Yes you start a trip with 100%, but that only happens at most once per day. What about in the middle? You willing to sit a fucking Walmart for 1hr to get to 100%? We’re not talking about a trip where you drive 3hr from home to the destination. I’m talking about road trips where you go half way across the country and do 5+hr of driving in a day, across multiple days.
you don’t charge to 100% every time if you don’t need to. you charge up to 80% or enough to get you to the next charger, whichever is lesser. Charging from 80-100% is gonna take as long or longer than charging from 5-80% in most EVs
5+hr of driving in a day
5 hours of driving is nothing. This is what I’m saying, the daily time savings between gas and EV only makes a serious difference once you get to the 10-12 hours/day range, which most people are unwilling to do anyway, thus rendering it kind of a moot point.
Also, the longer distance you go, the less expensive the trip will be by EV. You don’t have to remember to change your oil before you leave on a trip, and you don’t have to worry about oil changes partway through very long trips.
You willing to sit a fucking Walmart for 1hr to get to 100%?
With the EV I was road trippin in it took like 30 minutes. I would use the Walmart bathroom, buy some candy, and read a book. I survived to tell the harrowing tale. I will say, big box store bathrooms are typically much cleaner than gas station bathrooms
McDonald’s… the bane of every EV driver :-)
Umm, there are no EVs you should be going 75mph for hours at a time in unless you want to trash your range.
Not sure if you have ever actually driven an EV, but typically in my 300mi range vehicle, I usually stop every 200 miles, roughly every 3 hours for charging, stop for 20 minutes and am back on my way. Sure, am I often a little slow than if I had gas? Yes, but that’s ok, I also always arrive in my EV refreshed, have eaten, and not wore out.
All the arguments are like this. You shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do that. Well of course if you can avoid all the downsides EVs would be perfect, but we don’t live in that perfect world in your imagination where everything works and we always do what you think we should be doing. If EVs were as good as everybody says, you wouldn’t have any trouble convincing people to use them. Why can’t anybody just admit that there are real downsides which in some situations become a deal breaker?
I think the downsides are going to be mitigated soon. There are cars that get 400-600 miles of range. There are also new battery materials that can be charged in 5-10 minutes. Once one of those solutions become widely available, adoption will pick up. Also, gas hitting European prices in the US of $10-$12/gallon would also make people switch damn quick.
Umm, there are no EVs you should be going 75mph for hours at a time in unless you want to trash your range.
This is effectively telling people in the US they shouldn’t own EVs.
Except nmc batteries have no issue with being below 20 or above 80 percent soc, they have an issue with staying outside those values for longer periods of time. That’s why people say you shouldn’t charge above 80% in your day to day driving, because you’ll usually charge it to 100% and then just have the car parked in your driveway for hours with a full battery. When you’re on a road trip, you can absolutely use the bottom 20% of your battery as you’ll be charging it up immediately. You can also charge it up to 100% before starting your road trip with next to no effects on the battery for the same reasons.
So, yes, there’s obviously degradation for older cars and there’s the obvious effect of batteries charging slower the more charged they are, so I’ll give you that you won’t fully charge your car during a road (if you don’t have kids, I guess, as ours will absolutely drag out the break long enough to have the car sitting at 100%), but at the end of the day, the effects aren’t nearly as terrible as you describe, as you’d be at about 90% range for the first episode of the trip and about 80% for consecutive ones.
Regardless of degradation issues, I’m still not willing to go below 20% except for emergencies. One wrong exit on a long stretch of highway and you could be out of range for the next charging station. Yes, this has actually happened to me.
20% is around 100km range, depending on your battery etc. of course. I try not to arrive at a charger with no range left, but even going to the next one shouldn’t ever be more than 20 km unless you live in antarctica… 100km is excessive.
That’s only a little more than 2 hours at highway speeds.
Which is exactly when you should stop because fatigue starts to kick in.
All the messaging about fast charging speed is focused on the wrong thing. EV drivers should be able to do the vast majority of their charging at home or at their destination. The messaging should be about getting chargers in more homes, apartment complexes and workplaces. Speed doesn’t matter as much if you’re going to be parked for half the day or overnight. That’s something that gas simply can’t do.
Fast charging stations should only be necessary for road trips, where you should be taking a break every so often anyways.
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
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.
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?!”
“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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah EVs seem almost non-viable if you live in an apartment complex right now, which is a shame. At least where I am
When we made laws for handicap parking, there was handicap parking everywhere, overnight.
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.
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.
Which part of “apartment complex” did you misunderstand
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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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.
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.
We have been wanting an EV (something other than a Swasticar) for our next vehicle and think we could deal with the extended charging times required during a long drive or trip, but we ended up ruling it out.
For us the big problem is the difficulty getting parts and service. Service for the models we looked at is only available at dealers (and only some dealers), and parts are regularly not in dealer stock.
We really don’t want to risk taking a cross-county trip and having the car break down 200 miles from the nearest mechanic. With the additional real possibility of having to wait weeks (or months) for a part, an EV is not an appealing choice for us, at least not yet.
I think the reason they don’t have spare parts is because the motors are less complicated and, in theory, will need fewer replacement parts. An ICE motor is like 10,000+ moving parts, an electric motor is like 300 moving parts. They’re an order of magnitude less complicated.
LOL. Tesla parts shortages are because they break so frequently. You can’t drive a car without working door handles.
But there are still several ways the software or high voltage system can fault leaving people stranded and that usually isint a roadside fix or even a nearest auto part store run (yet)
Hyundai ICCU failures, for example.
Better not drive a car at all…
Yep
They’re looking for problems to justify their position
What are you expecting to break down? A modern internal combustion engine plus continuously variable transmission is one the world’s most complex pieces of engineering in common use today.
An electric drive system is trivial in comparison.
You would think that, but Hyundai EVs are popping ICCU fuses and Tesla motors all leak coolant from the seals. There is a Tesla that went 3 million kms. Only needed 4 battery swaps, but it needed 14 motors. Coolant leaks will be problem at higher mileage.
This is the truth. 4 years with a Chevy Bolt EUV and so far I have only replaced the tires and windshield wiper fluid. As someone who worked on several ICE cars for 2 decades, it’s kind of a dream to have so few things that can go wrong. The number of moving parts in a EV is a couple magnitudes less than an ICE car.
People don’t account for the time I am not spending at gas stations sniffing fumes every week or getting oil changes. The handfull of times I don’t charge at home are a fraction of time spent dealing with ICE routine maintenance.
The only thing I am slightly worried about is that my car has 3 coolant loops, which is one of my least favorite repairs.
You should get the brake fluid replaced. You’re probably due.
Nope, manual says 5 years, 50,000 miles.
I’d be worried about some of the electronics, modern cars, electric or not, tend to be overcomplicated with tablets and server connections and what have you. I might also worry about getting into an accident.
Hate to tell you this, but cars have been like this for about 15 years now.
Been a long time since ol Joe at the gas station could fill the tank and tune your carburetor with a screwdriver.
Yes but other cars can be repaired at any mechanic rather than just at a dealer, which is the issue we were talking about above.
I am well aware of the computerization of cars, how carburetors have not been a thing for more like 30 years, and how generally electric vehicles are better than combustion ones but both are worse than public transit.
My fears are software/firmware issues or battery pack failure. It’s an impossible problem for the common man to solve and you are beholden to the manufacturer. And at what cost? Minor accident? Manufacturer declares it unfixable and deactivates it. Doesn’t even matter if you repair it. Boo!
I really want one, but I can still repair my current car myself if needed.
No, you cannot roadside repair a car with a broken timing chain or clogged catalytic converter, or broken transmission.
The problem, as ever, isn’t the concept of an electric vehicle, it is the companies
Yet EVs are much less reliable than many ICE vehicles. The control module is one of the weak points. When it fails the car is down until it’s replaced.
As opposed to your ECU?
You’re just making shit up
Particularly when there’s less vibration, heat etc. to fuck with electronics
You’re pushing an agenda here
Why?
Right. My “agenda” is simple. I would prefer an EV, but when in the middle of bumfuck Nevada with no cell service when it’s 110F out, I don’t want a car that can only be fixed at a dealer and that may require a 3 week wait for parts.
I am sure you can show us real word data
No
Huge Study Shows EVs More Reliable Than ICE Cars With One Surprising Common Issue
EVs averaged 4.2 breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles, while similarly aged combustion models more than doubled that rate
https://www.carscoops.com/2025/04/new-study-shows-evs-are-more-reliable-than-ice-cars/
Sorry for lazy copy/paste. 1st search result in ‘reliability EV ice’
Case in point: https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1lfssfn/hyundais_iccu_problem_heres_what_we_know/
The GM’s EV reliability is terrible. BMW, Lexus and Tesla are much better, but not looking for a luxury vehicle or a Tesla.
Yeah but GM can’t make any kind of car reliable.
‘Not looking for this or that’ means cherry picking… So I guess you are right in your own little world
Also kudos for posting anecdotal evidence like it would mean something. You are really cheering up my day :)
Get a BYD
But, I’m assuming you are a Yank, given your attitude, so you can’t get them
But you don’t want an EV anyway
Is your entire life purpose whinging about Yanks?
username kinda checks out?
I figure I’d upset some EV fanboys with a dose of reality, but holy shit, you’re REALLY upset. Take your meds already.
What you’ve posted is cherrypicking and factually and statistically wrong argument and you’re expecting people not calling bullshit?
posts a lie
gets downvoted
shocked pikachu
Lol - not shocked at all. I fully expected the EV fanboys to shit themselves.
nope I’m actually using a proper toilet
You seem to be imagining things.
I was FOAMING when I pasted this 😹😹😹
You could say that about a number of components on ICE vehicles.
You guys don’t have insurance? If my car breaks down away from home, I can get a rental brought to me so I can continue my trip while my car gets fixed.
You don’t do road trips much? Trips don’t necessarily go to the same location twice and it can take days of driving to circle back.
Why circle back? My insurance would give me a car to continue my holiday.
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The world is not 'Murica
My country is bigger than yours, and I love my EV
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*You’re
Some CEO from 'Murica has absolutely zero credibility
I sure as hell don’t. That doesn’t sound fun at all.
My biggest problem with my EV is that I was stupid to get the service pack as it never has any service needs. Breaks last twice as long. No oil changes. No critical fluids other than wiper fluid. The easiest to fail part is the 12v battery which is standard for any car. If something hard to replace fails it is going to be a sensor and I’ve had that happen on a gas car before and no one had it in stock because no one stocks random sensors.
The service pack better include tires replacement, and then it would make sense for people who drive a lot on roads that destroy tires.
How often are you taking cross country trips on the spur of the moment? Take the advantages of owning an EV and then just rent something for the trip.
Often enough and the trips can be for a few weeks. Checked car rental rates recently and a small SUV had a nearly $2K base rate.
I call bullshit
Sounds like a plug in hybrid would be right up your alley. Many of the benefits of an electric vehicle (regen braking and the ability to charge at home, foremost) while still being able to fill up instantly using gas. Unfortunately you lose out on the basically-no-maintenance-required part of a pure EV, but frequent road trips are basically the ideal use case for a PHEV.
That’s exactly what we’re looking at.
The only time i seen a new EV breakdown is due to…that 12v battery. It usually happened around 2 or 3 years down. Other than that i still haven’t seens any EV breakdown yet.
Also for the part availability, logically newly released car tend to not having part laying around because logically no one will expect a new car to break down and waste a storage space for it, so no matter what car you buy it will be the same. But if a new car(released only 2 to 3 years) have parts widely available, then logically speaking, is that car still reliable?
EVs can break down. It tends to be less frequent but more expensive. I just had a bigger repair on mine. I’ll be crunching the numbers one of these days to see what the average cost of repairs has been.
No argument on that, just that it be strange to worry about replacement part for an EV that isn’t 5 or more years old. You will make as less sense if apply that to ICEV too, no new vehicle are expected to breakdown. Whatever module that might break on an ICEV will break on an EV too, but that’s not enough to dismiss the point that EV is much more reliable solely because there’s significantly less part required to run it.
You won’t find any readily available part for a newly launched EV the same way you won’t find any readily available part for a newly launched ICEV.
I was worried about that, too. My EV came with 6 vor 7 years warranty, so I decided not to care.
For context, parts are as available as they need to be. IOW, parts are in stock when they are frequently needed. If a part is rarely needed, it won’t be in stock locally.
If you choose a common EV model, like GM, Hyundai, or even Tesla, you are extremely unlikely to suddenly need extensive service. Dealers (with EV mechanics) are common, with multiple in every major city, and a parts network that can have anything shipped overnight.
“Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away”
WTF? This is exactly how I have refeuled every single time I have ever gotten gas. If I could pay a little extra for a pit stop style refuel I would. Who wants to linger around gas fumes, processed “food” , and energy drink boner pills?
A big draw of EV for me is that 99% I don’t need to stop anywhere to recharge. If I do though I want it to be as fast as possible.
You are missing out on delicious sushi.
It damn well better have caffeinated cream cheese in it or I’ll be disappointed.
Yea, I don’t get all these people who are like “yea lets get a 30 min lunch break at a gas station”. Dude, the last place I want to spend time at on a road trip is at a fucking gas station.
You can charge at gas stations, but why would you? Around here, there are cafes, restaurants, and supermarkets with fast chargers.
And why would a Walmart be any better? Around here, no charging stations have a restaurant neaby. I just looked up all the charging stations near me and none of them have stores I would want to stop at on a road trip
The point is that when every place you travel has a charging station you no longer need to ever stop for gas or to charge. Every stop just includes the charge. We can never do that with gasoline.
We bought an EV and it took a few trips for it to click that you don’t need to charge to 100% or even 90%. Hook it up, hit the restroom, buy a latte, then get back on the road with 50% charge.
You only need enough to get to wherever your longer parking+charge is going to be.
We also figure out the range anxiety. Getting down to 10% isn’t a big deal, especially if that last stop is going to get you back to full charge. Our EV doesn’t even have that great of range to start with.
100%. The time I spend at a fucking gas station is the time the gas is flowing + the overhead of tapping the card. Plus, if there are ads and the mute button doesn’t instantly work, leaving a 1 star review.
“If there are ads”
WTF where do you live?
They live in the US. You have to watch ads to take a shit.
Ads at pumps are fairly common in the US. They been around since 2019 if not earlier.
I think he meant this as where would someone live that it would be an if. Ads are pervasive
No ads in Europe as far as I’ve seen.
Not as many but there are occasional posters, banners, window ads. Hard to be in a public place without them.
We have ads in Australia too. :(
Don’t forget the unmutable unskippable multimedia advertisements on the fuel pump!
(Yes, I know some of them are allegedly mutable, but I have yet to find one.)
I’ve been told that a butter knife placed in just the right part of the speaker slot unveils the hidden permanent mute button
Just sounds like a CEO who doesn’t want to invest anything in upgrading anything.
Of course I want to be out of there quicker. I’m driving to somewhere and it sure as shit is not to a charging point.
It’s Ionna, one of the (IMO) best options for DC fast charging.
He’s not justifying slow chargers; he’s justifying building stuff around them. Basically the “truck stop” model.
I mean, I see no problem with that if they want but the fact remains I don’t hang out. Same as all that stupid Bucees garbage- I have no idea what kind of people are going in and shopping around a department store full of crap.
I’ve never understood the devotion or novelty of it all.
So yeah, that might work for some but yeah, I’d MUCH rather have as quick a charge as possible (and will go to the ones that can get me out quicker) and it seems judging by this thread I’m not alone.
All Americans should travel to Italy and have a meal at an Autogrill on the highways. It’s likely the best food you ever eat. US highway stops are all hot garbage.
I agree with you. I always hurry to get out of there ASAP.
When I had an ICE car, it was exactly the same. With our BEV however, I don’t generally need to charge “on the way” as I can start each morning fully charged, and have more than enough battery for a full day.
It’s only on longer trips we need to charge, and on those we can easily combine charge and a short break.I think it means specifically in the context of long road trips, the kind where everyone gets out to stretch their legs and take a piss while stopping for gas. On the other hand, I was under the impression that EVs simply didn’t have the range for such activities, so IDK.
Modern EVs have hundreds of miles of range and can easily do road trips as long as there are chargers along the route. I haven’t done any cross county trips but I have driven from NorCal to SoCal and eastern to western CO without issue.
My EV has a 330 mile range, and a full recharge at home costs me $4. It’s amazing.
If I remember correctly, the new BMW 3 series EV is like a 430 mile range.
Keep in mind the range listed, just like mileage, is based on certain circumstances. Freeway speeds (~80 mph) will drastically reduce that.
4 hours driving and a half hour charge while doing a biobreak is perfectly doable these days. You can keep that up a long time. Personally not a fan of that long a stretch and we’re doing more 2 hours driving and a break.
I was under the impression that EVs simply didn’t have the range for such activities, so IDK.
Maybe 10 years ago that was true, but now ranges and charging speeds have gotten much better. The infrastructure of gas stations is still better for easy road trips without pre-planning though.
Where I live (Denmark) there is no need for planning your charging, there are charging stations everywhere. I think the same is true for Sweden and Norway.
It’s only a matter of when the infrastructure is established enough. Scandinavia is among the more developed regions with regard to charging infrastructure, but it will be the same in other countries soon.The US doesn’t do infrastructure. Bridges barely work.
The same in Finland
😀 👍
It’s very possible. Aging Wheels on YouTube has a couple videos on road tripping in an EV.
Mine, an MG4, has 400 km. Enough to make you need a stop. And it gets from 20% to 80% in half an hour or less (50KWh+)
Sure, maybe a few min with a family I guess. But if traveling alone it’s still quick stretch, in and out of restroom in less than 5min.
In Europe I’ll grab an espresso, add an extra min I guess for that.
I know some families will spend maybe 20-30min at such places, but ideally that’s a choice not forced by charging time. Doesn’t need to happen tomorrow, but I do think fast charging is a desirable goal.
I’m in the process of running a 6-20 outlet for ev charging that doesn’t heat up mt panel or cause a huge draw. 240@16Amps is like 6+miles. Which means my commute is charged up in just under 3 hours. Yes, I could just hardwired something more exciting, but I want to slow charge my battery, but give it at least 240v to avoid the losses in winter.
You go inside gas stations because you HAVE to, not because you WANT to. Same with EVs.
