When do you think you will buy a 100% pure electric vehicle?

[fsanford]

I don't quite see the practical outrage there unless you are a person who puts gas into a car every single day. It's an overblown talking point.

You don't put gas into a car every day. You can/do put charge into an EV every day.

Probably more about longer trips. In an immediate gratification society (we seem to have become) lots of folks don't like to stop for longer periods every 300 miles.

I know several families where electric car is local around about town car, and the gas powered is used for longer trips. Some own 2 EV's and and 3rd car is gas powered

And in cities like LA having lots of EV for driving to work and around town is, or should be, the ultimate goal right now. That is where you get your greatest benefits at this time

 

[1SEIACLONE]

I don't quite see the practical outrage there unless you are a person who puts gas into a car every single day. It's an overblown talking point.

You don't put gas into a car every day. You can/do put charge into an EV every day.

It's a huge drawback for people that only have one vehicle. I agree you do not need to travel much each day, but how many are going to purchase a vehicle that really is not suited to traveling for vacations and such without a lot of planning beforehand?
EV's have their place, but until they get down the charging time, it's going to be very limited for many people.

 

[MeowingCows]

Probably more about longer trips. In an immediate gratification society (we seem to have become) lots of folks don't like to stop for longer periods every 300 miles.

I know several families where electric car is local around about town car, and the gas powered is used for longer trips. Some own 2 EV's and and 3rd car is gas powered

And in cities like LA having lots of EV for driving to work and around town is or should be the ultimate goal right now. That is where you get your greatest benefits at this time

It's a huge drawback for people that only have one vehicle. I agree you do not need to travel much each day, but how many are going to purchase a vehicle that really is not suited to traveling for vacations and such without a lot of planning beforehand?
EV's have their place, but until they get down the charging time, it's going to be very limited for many people.

That's fine. Accounting for long trips is reasonable to do, as is factoring whether its the only car, or a second car.

99% of people do not drive >250 miles daily. That's not much of a deciding factor in buying or not buying an EV, or at least it shouldn't be. It's an illogical use case to account for, for the extreme majority of average people. Vehicle decisions shouldn't be made around circumstances that occur once or twice a year, for something used every other day, with the ability to fuel itself at home when not being driven (and it's doing that significantly cheaper than actual gas).

 

[HFCS]

I never said it would be everyone second vehicle, what I am saying is that until they solve the problem of how long it takes to get a full charge, these vehicles are going to be purchased for very specific applications like a work vehicle that you to only to work or around town.
Recharging time is the problem, get that number down to 10 to 15 minutes, and more people will purchase them, until that happens, they won't.

fuel cost is massively cheaper for some people like myself (not everybody though and not Iowans). I only have one car and I’d absolutely hate if that one car had to go back to gas. just fuel cost and constant trips to gas station, it would suck.

 

[HFCS]

That's fine. Accounting for long trips is reasonable to do, as is factoring whether its the only car, or a second car.

99% of people do not drive >250 miles daily. That's not much of a deciding factor in buying or not buying an EV, or at least it shouldn't be. It's an illogical use case to account for, for the extreme majority of average people. Vehicle decisions shouldn't be made around circumstances that occur once or twice a year, for something used every other day.

What happens is they focus on that and ignore the convenience of charging at home because they have never experienced it.

Nobody knew Blockbuster VHS rentals were incredibly inconvenient compared to streaming until they had streaming.

Where I’ll agree is when fast chargers are in such short supply vs demand that people have to wait an hour to charge. The 20-35 minutes to charge on a road trip 1-3 times in a day is nothing, but make those stops 90 minutes and it can be a true nightmare.

 

[fsanford]

fuel cost is massively cheaper for some people like myself (not everybody though and not Iowans). I only have one car and I’d absolutely hate if that one car had to go back to gas. just fuel cost and constant trips to gas station, it would suck.

You got solar on the house? My California house is on LA city and rates are nuts. I have solar and that helps keeps usage down during peak hours and away from peak prices

You probably charged at night so that helps with
cost.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

That's fine. Accounting for long trips is reasonable to do, as is factoring whether its the only car, or a second car.

99% of people do not drive >250 miles daily. That's not much of a deciding factor in buying or not buying an EV, or at least it shouldn't be. It's an illogical use case to account for, for the extreme majority of average people. Vehicle decisions shouldn't be made around circumstances that occur once or twice a year, for something used every other day, with the ability to fuel itself at home when not being driven (and it's doing that significantly cheaper than actual gas).

I get what you are saying, but how far you can drive is a very important factor for a lot of people. Since moving to Ames, having a EV to tool around town or down to DM would be fine, but living in Bloomfield before that, where its 100 miles to either DM or IC, each way, not counting driving around while there would not be worth the risk to me. From Bloomfield to Ames for a football game is around 125 miles each way, that puts me at 250 miles just there and back, not accounting for any driving around or going out to eat and back and forth while here.

 

[HFCS]

You got solar on the house? My California house is on LA city and rates are nuts. I have solar and that helps keeps usage down during peak hours and away from peak prices

You probably charged at night so that helps with
cost.

I charge at night on Burbank plan so it’s practically nothing but even if I charged mid day it’d probably be like $30-40 a month vs filling up $5/gallon trips at $50-60 a pop.

I spend my vacation time in sierras and on the last trip the gas stations around me were $6.50, even using fast chargers I saved a good chunk a that.

 

[MeowingCows]

What happens is they focus on that and ignore the convenience of charging at home because they have never experienced it.

Nobody knew Blockbuster VHS rentals were incredibly inconvenient compared to streaming until they had streaming.

Where I’ll agree is when fast chargers are in such short supply vs demand that people have to wait an hour to charge. The 20-35 minutes to charge on a road trip 1-3 times in a day is nothing, but make those stops 90 minutes and it can be a true nightmare.

There's always special cases where something sincerely doesn't make sense to do, but I tend to view these things in the lens of the "average household". The average household doesn't have many legitimate reasons to be anti-EV apart from internet fears. They work just fine for typical people living typical lives, people are just scared of change like always. It's not like people enjoy going to gas stations.

It didn't make a lot of sense for me to get an EV before when I was renting to live. Now owning a house, even as a single person with one car, I could get it work for more than 95% of my life. There would be few, rare cases where it would be a measurable inconvenience.

 

[HFCS]

There's always special cases where something sincerely doesn't make sense to do, but I tend to view these things in the lens of the "average household". The average household doesn't have many legitimate reasons to be anti-EV apart from internet fears. They work just fine for typical people living typical lives, people are just scared of change like always. It's not like people enjoy going to gas stations.

It didn't make a lot of sense for me to get an EV before when I was renting to live. Now owning a house, even as a single person with one car, I could get it work for more than 95% of my life. There would be few, rare cases where it would be a measurable inconvenience.

Urban people who can only park in street have legit hassle, maybe a few with their own parking where that parking has no way to charge…but the anti EV fear isn’t from that urban group. People with garages that already are wired just don’t know in many cases.

 

[dmclone]

This is typical pushback from non-owners.

I remember people talking about how bad fuel injection was compared to carburetors.

Anti Lock brakes were another example. I heard a LOT of people talking about how unsafe anti-lock brakes were. I also witnessed a lot of people pumping their antilock brakes.

Seat belts-"I'm not going to get trapped in my car".

 

[HFCS]

This is typical pushback from non-owners.

I remember people talking about how bad fuel injection was compared to carburetors.

Anti Lock brakes were another example. I heard a LOT of people talking about how unsafe anti-lock brakes were. I also witnessed a lot of people pumping their antilock brakes.

Seat belts-"I'm not going to get trapped in my car".

Can anyone tell me if I’m remembering this wrong, but as a kid in 80s I swear I remember an ad or news story promoting that a seatbelt killed a child. I was a kid so possible I read or heard it wrong and it was promoting seatbelts, but at the time it definitely made me think “I guess sometimes seatbelts can kill”.

 

[brianhos]

If everybody’s second car is going to be an EV they’d be huge sellers.

That's what we have, gas main car and EV commuter. If we go on a road trip, we take the gas car, if we are running to Ames or WDM for dinner/whatever then we take the EV. Had it for 4 years now, added windshield washer fluid and changed the tires in 40,000 miles.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

There's always special cases where something sincerely doesn't make sense to do, but I tend to view these things in the lens of the "average household". The average household doesn't have many legitimate reasons to be anti-EV apart from internet fears. They work just fine for typical people living typical lives, people are just scared of change like always. It's not like people enjoy going to gas stations.

It didn't make a lot of sense for me to get an EV before when I was renting to live. Now owning a house, even as a single person with one car, I could get it work for more than 95% of my life. There would be few, rare cases where it would be a measurable inconvenience.

It's a larger problem for many people than "scared of change". Are you 100% sure that Ev's are the future, or is it hydrogen or some other fuel source? Many do not want to get stuck spending 10s of thousands and end up with a Beta Max version when it's not the standard that we will use. We have a hybrid now, great compromise, but I will not be purchasing an EV in the future until I know for sure that is the technology that we are going to use going forward and the infrastructure is in place to support it

 

[BryceC]

It's a huge drawback for people that only have one vehicle. I agree you do not need to travel much each day, but how many are going to purchase a vehicle that really is not suited to traveling for vacations and such without a lot of planning beforehand?
EV's have their place, but until they get down the charging time, it's going to be very limited for many people.

We drove to Florida for the bowl game. That’s the last time I would have needed to charge an EV outside of normal.

I think you’re massively overestimating how much people actually drive in a day or how frequently.

 

[MeowingCows]

It's a larger problem for many people than "scared of change". Are you 100% sure that Ev's are the future, or is it hydrogen or some other fuel source? Many do not want to get stuck spending 10s of thousands and end up with a Beta Max version when it's not the standard that we will use. We have a hybrid now, great compromise, but I will not be purchasing an EV in the future until I know for sure that is the technology that we are going to use going forward and the infrastructure is in place to support it

There are, what, ~15,000,000 or so EVs currently in operation around the globe? It's here to stay for the foreseeable future. It's the main source of investment. Hydrogen cars basically amounted to a single model of Toyota that sold in the thousands at peak and never had infrastructure built out to support it.

Hybrids are definitely underutilized and really we should've been chasing those more than we did 20+ years ago, but again, more fear and stigmatization of change... but even a modern hybrid is just the good parts of an EV strapped with an ICE engine. Basic principle is the same, with a different battery charger. Again, that is the future. The signs are already comfortably here, right now.

 

[HFCS]

It's a larger problem for many people than "scared of change". Are you 100% sure that Ev's are the future, or is it hydrogen or some other fuel source? Many do not want to get stuck spending 10s of thousands and end up with a Beta Max version when it's not the standard that we will use. We have a hybrid now, great compromise, but I will not be purchasing an EV in the future until I know for sure that is the technology that we are going to use going forward and the infrastructure is in place to support it

I’m 100% sure. It’s like 1/3 of new car sales here in LA and very clear the trend setters with money do not want to bother with gas anymore. Also globally lots of countries (small and massive populations) are well past the tipping point of permanent embrace.

There are infrastructure challenges but electricity will always be everywhere and there are many ways to generate it, the truth is everything BUT electric fuel is the thing with long term question marks and bottlenecks.

What other fuel could we use where 60-70% of people already own their own personal fueling station? How expensive is it to build your own gas or hydrogen station in rural America vs a level 1 or level 2 EV charger?

 

[1SEIACLONE]

We drove to Florida for the bowl game. That’s the last time I would have needed to charge an EV outside of normal.

I think you’re massively overestimating how much people actually drive in a day or how frequently.

Again, its not that they are doing it daily or even weekly, it's their ability to do it when they have the want or need. Right now the infrastructure in many places just do not make EV practical for everyone.
Major car companies here in the US and across the globe are pulling back their commitment to EVs, producing fewer vehicles not more. They are unsure of the future of the vehicle, which says a lot, as they are the ones not only building them, but planning what we will purchase in the future. I am not against EV's, just unsure and unwilling to commit to something that may not be the standard 10 years from now and does not have the infrastructure in place right now to support it, in many areas of the country.

 

[BCClone]

Can anyone tell me if I’m remembering this wrong, but as a kid in 80s I swear I remember an ad or news story promoting that a seatbelt killed a child. I was a kid so possible I read or heard it wrong and it was promoting seatbelts, but at the time it definitely made me think “I guess sometimes seatbelts can kill”.

Wonder if it wasn’t promoting child seats. Think I remember ones where it showed kids snapping forward and the belt was either head high and broke the neck or the neck whiplash did.

 

[brianhos]

We drove to Florida for the bowl game. That’s the last time I would have needed to charge an EV outside of normal.

I think you’re massively overestimating how much people actually drive in a day or how frequently.

I have been to a supercharger in my EV 3 times in 4 years.
1 time to get it home from Minnesota.
1 time driving to MSP when it was horribly cold out (-17f)
1 time driving home on that trip.

I routinely go to Omaha and KC for work, I just charge it there while I am sitting in the office all day. I wish more employers had charging infrastructure at work.