Compared to internal combustion or hybrid cars, EVs are piling up on the lots.
Personally, I don't make a lot of long-distance drives anymore. My longest trip, these days, is to visit my mother in her nursing home three states away. Most EVs have the range to make the trip. But once I got there, there is no place to plug in and charge up. If I wanted to stop for lunch on the way, there's no place to charge a vehicle.
But there are plenty of gas stations. And pumping up a tankful of gas only takes a few minutes.
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Hybrids are the middle step for many reasons.
Newer EV’s are getting pretty quick on the charge from 10% to 90%, but it’s still a pit stop. The issue of optimist range estimates is coming up, with manufacturers having learned how to best game the system. The weighting of City mileage over Highway plays to the EV’s advantage.
More problematic on sale and mandates is the inability of a significant portion of the population to plug an EV in (most apartments) or being limited to a 120v (Level 1) power feed. A Level 1 charge is equivalent to a cup of gasoline per hour…not nearly enough.
That being said, now that the Tesla NACS standard has been adopted for GM, Ford, and Mercedes Benz (all 2025 and on), the CCS standard will wither on the vine and be converted to NACS pretty quickly. I’d expect VW/Audi and BMW to announce a move shortly, and the Asian manufacturers to follow suit soon. NACS is a better standard, but will Tesla’s appeal drop as the owners start to find a Mach-E and an E-Tron charging, and blocking their charge?
I don't know about that 'cup of gas an hour' ~ I've been slow-charging my eMini off the 110 since we got it, going on eight months ago, and haven't seen an appreciable increase in my electric bill. With fifteen hundred dollars of infrastructure installed I can fast-charge off the 220, but I practically have to back it up the back-porch steps to do so, and extensions are running about twelve dollars a foot.
Road-tripping is a different issue. I've mapped out a couple ~ sidebar: you do have to think ahead, there's not necessarily a 'gas' station every hundred miles but most motels and many restaurants/mini-marts/gas-stations provide them, and a couple hundred miles is as good a time as any to take a break, stretch, wake up ~ but we don't drive that much, and I don't let it get below a quarter-tank. It is what it is designed to be, a city car ...
Problem is Americans are getting sold on being Tank Commanders (big SUVs and pickup) or Formula One hotshots (rocket sled hyper cars). Heaven forbid a simple light EV Model T-equivalent would be offered, that'd be perfect for the local driving that's 80% or more of everyone's driving. Keep your old beater for long-distance trips. Mine is an '03 Jetta diesel with 305K miles that gets 45-50 MPG on the highway and 60+ MPG locally. With a 15 gallon tank, that's 750 miles until bingo
Where is the stack of Hummer EVs she mentioned , they only made 47 in the last quarter.
There is enough variety in the market now that people can be a bit choosy. Tesla model Y is the best selling car in Germany,period,outselling everything else,gas,diesel,highbred or ev.Volkswagen has a slowdown in ev sales because their cars while being good in most ways have lousy software.
VW has been FUBARing their software of EVs for a while now, as in since 2019. They've had a while to get it wrong
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/04/whats-going-on-with-volkswagens-software-division/
Alas, software is hard. The definitive early (1975) book on how it can be done right, how it can go wrong is Brook's The Mythical Man Month. The title alludes to the dandy delusion that you can get a baby in a month by getting 9 women pregnant. It's an compelling easy read, even if you
re not a computer weenie.
https://archive.org/details/MythicalManMonth
I bought my plug-in partly because of the incentives ($$$$, car pool lane). This doesn’t help second hand buyers and other locales.
Electricity costs much less than gasoline. Commuting works, but long distance is a hassle. Supercharging may not be good for battery longevity. Not-home charging is free (a few workplaces) or much more expensive than home.
And not everyone has a home+garage with 220v available. I was fortunate to have an unneeded dryer outlet and a charger that needed a homemade plug adapter for Level 2 charging.
Electric is not at a place for most. Not now, maybe never for all.
The thing about hybrids is that you get the long range of a vehicle supplied with an oversized tank, while reducing your cost per mile below that of an IC car or truck. I’ve driven my BIL‘s car, and the Prius is a nice ride. Abut if you are bound to spite your face by cutting off your nose and go for an IC-only vehicle because the route between you and your moms NH is American Primitive when it comes to technology, knock yourself out, Tiger,
DA, go back and read the first seven words of my post. I said nothing bad about hybrids.
So, in summation, blow it out yer ass, Bucko.
You didn’t say which one you would definitely choose, so I welcome your hatred, to quote a famous politician.
I direct your attention to Rule #1 of this blog.
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