Because if you live in an apartment your only option for charging is to go to a charging location. You can't just plug it in overnight.
Which I can see as a big hurdle for a lot of people.
This was my biggest issue. I live in a townhouse with a carport-ish thingy, but the same issue applies.
Even Level 1 charging is pretty notable, means the vast majority of your daily miles still come from charging at home. This should be achievable if you have an outside plug and an outdoor extension cable.
Though, I suspect from your statement even that isn't possible due to ownership issues.
I charged my EV overnight from an overhead garage door power socket in my apartment for years before I moved out. Never even needed public charging. Many people just don’t realize you can charge from a normal household outlet
I've never had an apartment with a garage. At minimum I'd have needed a 100 ft extension cord. Probably longer, which means it'd have to be thicker. Which means more expensive.
And I'm not sure about your apartments but at mine (and many others in my area) we can't have anything hanging out of our windows unless it's an AC
If I tried an extension cord it'd be a violation of my lease
Near all apartments around me have exclusively open-air parking, so this isn't a viable solution for many. It's not that the available power is inadequate, it's non-existent.
I've had an EV for four years now and I've relied exclusively on public charging. I won't say it's never been without any annoyances but overall it was pretty unproblematic. It can absolutely be done if you want it. Recently they installed chargers at my workplace so now I'm fine and dandy.
Of course there aren't many people buying EVs when the only ones available in the US are high end luxury models.
Import a bunch of those cheap Chinese EVs and lots of people will buy them. It won't hurt the US manufacturers because they don't produce any budget models.
It will hurt US manufacturers, because their budget gasoline cars won't sell.
And they'll spend more money fighting the inevitable pivot to EVs than they would if they just pivoted now.
There's the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt/Spark, Mini Cooper EV, Hyundai Kona/Ioniq 6, Fiat 500e and more. These qualify for subsidies if purchased new plus all the gas savings make them decently affordable or you can always buy them used as most people do.
Most people are going for the midrange models like the Model Y, Model 3, Ioniq 5, etc though since it's not really ideal to buy the 'worst' version of something when making a large purchase. People want more range, space, and features. Even with ICE cars, the subcompacts sell/sold pretty poorly.
Import a bunch of those cheap Chinese EVs and lots of people will buy them
Or start building affordable EVs here.
Back in the 70s when Toyota, Datsun, Honda etc started eating the big 3's lunch on affordable fuel efficient vehicles, they responded with smaller cars of their own.
If they're not willing to respond to market demand and competition, do they even deserve to stay in business?
Isn't that what the "free market" they claim to love enforces?
Too expensive. Not owner repairable. Too much unnecessary tech baked in.
There’s a path forward for EV’s, but I don’t think the current philosophy is it.
It definitely has nothing to do with the outrageous starting price range.
Yup, American manufacturers are still treating EVs as if they're this exotic new toy for upper-middle class people or silicon valley douche bros, rather than getting onboard with the concept of them just being a utilitarian thing that needs to be marketed to normal people.
Give me the EV equivalent of the Geo Metro and I'll buy it in a heart beat. I'm not taking out a second mortgage for a car that tries to drive itself and whatever dumb gimmicks they come up with, but I will 100% buy an affordable, practical EV designed with efficiency and economy in mind.
Would be nice if they made 'dumb' EVs. Like the kind where even the windows are manual old school roll up. I don't need to walk into a spaceship to drive to get groceries. But all they're selling are luxury spaceships. For all the good Tesla did to rebrand the market, I feel it also did a lot of harm by creating an incentive for luxury vehicles.
Feel like this is what Fisker should’ve tried. The Ocean had the right hardware but it seemed like they spent too much effort on their infotainment instead of getting the basics right. Then target the sub-$30k market with a car that drives well with decent range and fewer gimmicks that just works.
No one's mentioned the privacy nightmare that new vehicles are. Why anyone would pay $45k for a vehicle that spies on you for the sole benefit of car manufacturers and insurance companies is beyond me. Do away with all the unnecessary privacy violations, or pay ME a monthly subscription for MY data.
Yep, this is the reason I won't get an EV or any modern car. Probably gonna be driving 2016 cars or older the rest of my life.
My non EV is still perfectly serviceable and I don't like all the superfluous electronic touchscreen bullshit they're putting in modern vehicles so I'm going to keep driving it until the wheels fall off.
Yup, I'm looking at used EVs to replace my commuter (50mpg, so no hurry), and they come with a bunch of smart crap, so I'm looking at ways to block any potential phoning home before I buy the car.
It's dumb. Just give me an EV with 150-200 miles range with no smart crap for $20k and I'll buy it.
I mean, just they're too expensive. You can buy a normal gas car for around 147 Monero while an EV will set you back 238 Monero.
My car cost 10k€, the equivalent EV is 20k€. Why don’t I buy more EVs? That’s a mystery, let’s call McKinsey to understand why.
Also let’s double the price of more affordable foreign cars to increase the amount of mystery. Sometimes I wonder if governments do this to make fun of us because it’s so stupid.
Those "more affordable foreign cars" are only priced that low because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so much, which is only temporary and lasts just as long as it takes to put their competitors out of business.
This is a race to the bottom just like states giving trillion dollar corporations billions in tax breaks as an incentive to move to their state. At the end of the day, it just harms everyone and should be avoided, which is why the US and EU are putting tariffs on Chinese EVs. They're still free to sell them at the real cost and actually compete with everyone else.
I've never even driven an EV, they're comically far out of my price range.
All of them are expensive, and almost all of them are ugly as fuck. And the ones that I would consider even decent looking enough to drive are even more expensive than the others.
Price, range, infrastructure, in roughly that order of importance when averaged over the population. The article then goes into factors affecting price. (Of course, the article originated with the Financial Times and was only reprinted by Ars, so it makes sense that they would put money first.)
For me, the last time I was in the market for a replacement vehicle, the 2 biggest factors were availability and price.
The dealers had zero stock (except maybe a rare fully optioned ridiculously priced example of the top of the line model), and I was not in a position to wait 2+ months for a factory order of a car that I couldn't even test drive.
Exactly.
I'm willing to get a commuter EV, but almost everything either has too little range (e.g. older Leafs) or too much range that drives up the cost. I'm not willing to spend $30k+ on something that can really only be a commuter.
EVs don't have the range to replace our family car since we do road trips, and anything with enough storage is already way more than a reasonable hybrid. Add to that high electricity rates at charging stations, and I'm just not interested.
So, make an affordable EV ($20k, ideally less) with 150-200 miles range, and I'll buy it. I'm looking at used Bolts, which seem to be ~$15k after the credit for used. There really should be something new in this category though...
I want a super cheap EV for 15k-20k to drive around the city, but I'm not ready to give up my gas jeep.
The cheapest EV I can seem to find is about 45k CAD new, looks stupid, and comes with a ton of features I don't want that will just break and need repair...
Where I live, there's one charging station. And it's like 8 miles or so from my house. I've yet to see more. It's also a fairly rural area. I think we forget how much population lives outside cities.
I've been saying since EVs hit the market that I couldn't wait for them to be cheap enough used for me to justify purchasing one. That hasn't happened yet. Most I've ever spent on a car was $7k.
Because the most environmentally friendly car, is the one you already own.
Producing ev is heavy strain on the climate. This change won't happen overnight.
Ev needs to be better and cheaper if it wants to defeat the ice market.
Were waiting for the next wave of $25k EV since there is no hope that the tariffs on the only country with enough scale to build affordable EV is on a 100% tariff.
I'll tell you why I won't buy one.
I'm not going to go into debt as much as a house would've cost me 20 years ago so I can drive a 10,000 pound explosive that I spend several hours a day charging, be asked to pull over to turn on Bluetooth, have a tracking device in my car, which the government can turn off if they like, have to fumble with a touch screen to turn up the air conditioner, have to pay rent for features built into the car and then have any features I purchased be non transferrable on the secondary market. These are all fuck you's to me, so I say fuck you to them. Take your vendor lock in SAAS product and shove it up your ass. You want me to give a shit about emissions, fix all that, until then I'm driving a 20 year old beater.
You're literally describing every new car now, whether EV or ICE.
Yup, and I won't buy a new gas car either.
Because they're an unsustainable con for saving the auto/oil cartels instead of the planet/humanity?
Instead of going into poverty buying a luxury vehicle, people should be given safe and sustainable infrastructure for LEVs, bikes, pedestrians, and of course public transit.
Cant charge it myself, doesn't last long enough, dies when it's too cold
If my - or any other - complex had charging stations, I'd consider it. The most I'd ever be able to get is a hybrid, if I wasn't so dirt-ass poor that an old and busted used car was the best that I could afford, because I'm disabled and live in friggin America.
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