I said this to myself before I bought my last car, but:
1) There doesn't seem to be any practical or socially acceptable way of charging a car that is parked on the street (I don't have a driveway)
2) Electric cars seems to still be significantly more expensive, even used. For what I was willing to pay, I couldn't find anything more than a very basic used leaf.
3) At the affordable end at least: They are so ugly and there's little to choose from. Both the Leaf and Zoe have this weird "electric car" look that I am not keen on.
That was my experience a couple of years ago in the UK
Number 1 is still the major issue, electric cars make sense for those who own a house or has access to an underground car park with charging.
If you don't get a Tesla then the infrastructure is still not great. And roaming negotiations to let other electric cars use Teslas charging is still not a thing.
For a successful rollout every charging facility has to be available, period.
Adding electric charging to gas stations will not help enough.
The current selection of electric cars is much better today, though most new cars seem to be in the high end of the price range.
It will be interesting to see the terms and pricing for this.
Charging speed is still not great, the new Skoda Enyaq iV can charge to 80% capacity in 34 minutes. That translates to 12,6 km/minute for the first 80%.
A 10 year old diesel car can add about 200 km/minute when refueling.
The range for the Enyaq is from 300-600 km, while the diesel car is about 850 km.
A new Skoda Octavia has a range of about 1100 km, so nearly double the range of the Enyaq on a summer day.
So both charging speed and range has a long way to go for EVs.
I wonder if charging at work is the alternative for people without parking. Employers would need an incentive of course but it would probably be easier to roll out than putting them in the street. Most of us are at work for eight hours a day which is more than enough to cope with the longest commutes.
I looked at the numbers when we replaced my wife's car a couple of years ago and it didn't work. We bought a three year old hatchback for £7K with just 13K miles, we will keep it for at least six years. With the low mileage we do there is no way any current EV could get close.
Having said that I doubt we will buy another ICE. At the moment demand is high and supply is constrained so of course the manufacturers are going to concentrate on high margin products. Hopefully this will change as the supply ramps up.
I’ve known a lot of people to say this, only to buy a gas powered vehicle when they realize that Teslas aren’t as cheap as they thought. The price gets even higher when they realize they need to hire an electrician to install a charging station for several thousand dollars.
A Tesla Model 3 base model in white with no options will cost $41K with destination charge and no self-driving. Upgrade to the long range model, any color other than white, and get the self-driving package and you're looking at $60K. That same $60K could buy two Honda Insight hybrids which get 40-50mpg, and you'd still thousands left over. There are cheaper electric cars out there, but it's still tough to compete with economy gasoline cars or even economy hybrids like the Honda Insight.
Road trips are also a hurdle for many. If a family drives 8 hours to visit grandma twice a year but an electric car would require a long charging stop at sparse charging infrastructure, suddenly that gas powered vehicle looks a lot more attractive.
A Model 3 is cheaper over five years than a Camry Hybrid considering total cost of ownership [1].
The cost to install an EV charging station can be as low as $500, but if it does cost more due to having to have your load center/breaker panel replaced, the US government has a 30% tax credit up to $1000 to offset the costs.
The Tesla Supercharger network is extensive [2], and continues to grow by the week; charging at one takes ~20-30 minutes. Other networks with less coverage are available for Teslas (with an adapter) and non-Teslas alike.
It does't hurt that jurisdictions continue to enact deadlines for combustion vehicle bans [3].
If you look closely at your first source, you’ll notice it’s specific to Australia, and assumes Australian prices for gas and electricity, as well a hugely different depreciation for the two cars.
Doing the same math for most American states will punish the Tesla.
US prices for fuel are lower, but so is the cost of electricity in the US. It’s about half the cost per mile to drive an EV vs a light combustion vehicle.
Why is a 5 year cost of ownership relevant when a Toyota has a proven track record of lasting 10 to 20+ years and 200k to 300k+ miles without needing anything other than cheap routine care?
Surely the evidence is stronger for cost per mile and cost per year being lower for a Toyota than a Tesla over the whole lifetime of the vehicle.
Most people own a car no longer than 10-12 years. If governments are phasing out combustion vehicle sales, I don’t see how 20+ year longevity is relevant when the infrastructure to support such a vehicle might not even exist at that point. Gas stations will wind down at some point as consumption tipping points are reached. Bosch in Germany is already preparing to close some facilities that produce ICE specific components.
Why does it matter if they own it or not? They still get the value from a functional vehicle if/when they sell it since the buyer will pay more for it.
It is possible infrastructure for gas will be reduced in 20 years, but I doubt it will be anything noticeable to almost all people with gas vehicles.
As of Mar 2019, percent of electric vehicles sold in US was at 1.8%. That means the majority of fossil fuel cars sold in 2019 will probably be around in some way in 20 years (cars generally last much longer these days).
I got my Chevy Bolt for 30k. (22.5k with federal subsidy).
If you are taking an 8 hour road trip , it's not a huge stretch to put an 45 min charging session (especially if only twice a year, you're out 90 mins).
This is a highly dynamic market: from rapidly (in some geographies) developing charging infrastructure to EVs becoming nicer, cheaper and with higher range. Two recent news in this regard are quite notable: a) Elon Musk announcing opening Tesla's Supercharger infrastructure to non-Tesla cars later this year and b) Chinese EV manufacturer Xpeng pricing base model of their new sedan P5 at less than $25K (beating Tesla at bringing the price of a solid EV down to that critical level).
As someone in the USs midwest, EVs are a really tough sell for me. Charging is slow in the best case scenario, charging stations are few and far between, there are few "affordable" options, and it's unclear how well current models will retain their value in 6+ years. I'm hopeful for the tech, but I certainly can't see myself buying a fully electric vehicle before 2030.
Most people I know around here seem to have similar reservations at best. Plus the majority of vehicles here are trucks and SUVs, for which there are still very few EV options.
I don't even had a car for the 6 last years. I don't commute(remote work), If I need items I do home delivery, If I need to be somewhere I ride my motorcycle or a cab.
I love enduro riding and MX racing though. Tried to do this electric didn't really like it. Maybe it will grow on me when it improves.
- How about those in cold climates where batteries don’t last nearly as long.
- upper middle-class and higher only? Most apartments don’t have hookups. Those that do don’t have enough for 10% of the residents. How many home have hookups? How many families have $10k laying around to install hookups?
Beyond the fact that it’s not reasonable at all for most Americans, no electrical grid would be able to handle it.
It takes 2 minutes to refill you car with petrol. Most people don’t have the patience to wait 4 hrs for a fillup.
Electric vehicles for near majority is not realistic at all right now.
At the moment, this is a “cool” novelty, but not an option for most.
Adding a 220 outlet isn't outrageously expensive and it is only needed once as it will work with any future EVs. Adding a circuit and outlet to my garage cost $500 and I use the charging adapter that came with the car.
And as for the grid not being able to handle the load - we were able to roll out air conditioning to every home in a couple of decades. I believe this is a solvable problem.
If half of American commuters switched to EVs, the daily energy demand on the grid would only increase by 10-15%. The difference between peak load and average load is close to 30%, so we could handle that new EV load with the existing generation capacity. We just need market solutions to incentivize owners to charge during off peak hours, which most utilities already have via time-of-use rates and EV-specific plans.
To be more clear: the US grid with its existing generation capacity could certainly handle 41% of consumers switching to EVs. We would simply not ramp down as many power plants at night as we do now [1].
However, that would result in this additional marginal demand being satisfied mostly by fossil fuel plants: natural gas and coal, which currently ramp up and down on a daily basis. What is more likely to occur is that the new marginal demand caused by EVs will be satisfied by new capacity from solar and wind farms. Areas with good solar capacity (CA, FL, the southwest) will incentivize EVs to charge during the day, and areas with more consistent wind capacity (the midwest) will incentivize charging at night. Coal plants will increasingly close for economic reasons, while existing natural gas plants will continue to run at lower capacity factors.
Depending on how electricity and carbon markets are structured, and how the costs of different generation technologies and fuels change in the future, there's a good chance that the US grid of the future will look like how I described, and that people will pay less of their income on energy services, and that the air in cities and homes will be cleaner, and that people around the world will be less at risk from the effects of climate change.
1) There doesn't seem to be any practical or socially acceptable way of charging a car that is parked on the street (I don't have a driveway)
2) Electric cars seems to still be significantly more expensive, even used. For what I was willing to pay, I couldn't find anything more than a very basic used leaf.
3) At the affordable end at least: They are so ugly and there's little to choose from. Both the Leaf and Zoe have this weird "electric car" look that I am not keen on.
That was my experience a couple of years ago in the UK