That was the Chevy Volt. And it was a glorious piece of amazing engineering.
Not marketed. Barely sold. Dealers hated it (too reliable, too "weird"). Technology never transferred into a larger vehicle that "normal" Americans would want to drive. GM couldn't be convinced to make an Equinox or a Silverado with that kind of drivetrain, or even try. They decided that pure electric made more sense, but they also are incapable of marketing and selling that, either.
My cynical take is: Combustion engines and highways made North America as it is. The Baby Boomer "American Grafitti" generation that holds power lives and breathes gas burning auto culture as the apex of and very definition of progress.
ICE from their cold dead hands.
Our continent will go down literally burning because of it.
(Well, Trump is currently killing off what remains of the North American auto industry, so I guess we'll see...)
Please stop with the hyperbole. It's unproductive. Switching everyone to BEVs would require a massive investment in infrastructure. Given the speeds at which EVs charge, at least every other parking spot at the stop would need a charger to make it viable for the average consumer.
Assuming at least a quarter of those are actually charging at the same time, supplying that amount of power requires a massive upgrade to wiring and delivery to all road stops. We would need high voltage lines and a mini substation running to every stop along the road. Not to mention the massive upgrade in power generation capacity.
>Given the speeds at which EVs charge, at least every other parking spot at the stop would need a charger to make it viable for the average consumer.
That's what they do in China. Go to any random underground parking, and you'll find charging stations everywhere. Even the bikes are all electric and have chargers everywhere.
It's absolutely wild to me that the argument against BEVs is, "But we don't have the infrastructure right now, and we definitely won't be able to build it!"
It's also a totally off-base response when we were talking in this thread about a vehicle (the Volt, or even the Prius) that doesn't need that infrastructure anyways.
Like, let's just be fine with the "half-measure." If all drivers switched to a (strong) plugin hybrid tomorrow, emissions would be down significantly without any real need for this supposedly-blocking-progress infrastructure.
That we couldn't even get there underscores my point above. There are forces working against that. We should identify what they are and fight them.
Unless we're just still being climate change deniers. I guess we are.
Mine got totaled in an accident, and I was going to replace it with a new used one, only to find GM is not selling replacement parts for key things that are starting to go wrong on them. And being dicks about warranties.
So I'm driving a Polestar2 now. Which is fine, it's fun. But road trips suck.
It's nice but not worth the price to buy it new, not even close. I got mine used and quite depreciated.
And with the tariffs against Chinese vehicles it's been removed from sale in North America (for new vehicles, only available used) and it's questionable about how well I'll be able to get it serviced in the future. The local Volvo dealers apparently have a chip on their shoulders about Polestar and won't touch it, either.
> Given the speeds at which EVs charge, at least every other parking spot at the stop would need a charger to make it viable for the average consumer
This is not based in reality.
My car visits many dozens of parking spots in an average week. Only one of them needs a charger.
When I leave the house, its fully charged with >200mi of range. I drop the kids off at school, I don't need to charge. I go to the office, I don't need to charge (although there are chargers available). I go to a restaurant for lunch, I don't need to charge. I go to the pharmacy, I don't need to charge (although there are chargers available). I go to hardware store, I don't need to charge. I go to grocer, I don't need to charge (although there are chargers available). I pick up the kids from school, I don't need to charge. We go to the city park, I don't need to charge (although there are chargers available). I get home, and plug in. Finally, it charges, even though it didn't use 25% of its capacity. It can charge slowly over several hours, imparting about the same load on the grid than my air conditioner or pool pump.
I am absolutely an average American car consumer. Maybe only slightly less, as I don't own a pickup truck.
I do agree, an EV today probably isn't for everyone. People who routinely do very long road trips might not have a great experience depending on where they are. People who absolutely can't charge at home and there aren't many chargers around their grocery stores or office probably shouldn't get an EV. Currently EV pickup trucks are stupid expensive and aren't great for towing, so if you're the kind of person putting his boat in the lake every weekend its probably not right for you today.
But most Americans live in single-family homes, which generally speaking can easily get a several kW charger installed pretty cheap. And it wouldn't put much more load on the grid as any other appliance in their house.
My absolutely biased take is that ICE car drivers are so accustomed to their frequent trips to the gas station that they just can't imagine a vehicle that does not require this.
Granted, that observation applies mostly only to single family home owners who can run an L2 EVSE. It is naturally different for people who cannot charge at home.
But I think there's also often an assumption that an EVSE is some elaborate expensive thing. I charged for years at 3kW, and drove 100+km a day on that. It was fine. Even an L1 120v charge could just fine for people who are going like 30-40km a day, which is a lot of people.
> Switching everyone to BEVs would require a massive investment in infrastructure.
God forbid? Why is this phrased like a bad thing. We should be investing in infrastructure. Any country with a modicum of common sense invests in the basic functioning of that country going forward?
