by phront on 5/3/21, 12:15 AM with 187 comments
by beardicus on 5/3/21, 12:58 AM
because they charge at home! this article is quite silly.
if you cant level 2 charge at home then yes... having an EV may be quite inconvenient. but all this "i can fill my SUV in three minutes" stuff is... dumb. know what's even more convenient? never stopping at a stupid gas station ever again. i wait 0 minutes for my car to charge because i plug it in when i get home and then go inside and forget all about it.
by hkarthik on 5/3/21, 12:45 AM
A lot of folks also leased their EVs and got great deals on charging with the lease. As these leases have expired along with their charging discounts, it's not surprising that these folks are returning the cars and switching back to gas powered vehicles with better ROI.
More government incentives are needed to build charging infrastructure and make EV ownership more viable for people that don't own a single family home. Otherwise the EV revolution will be dead in the water.
by Robotbeat on 5/3/21, 1:05 AM
There are outlets everywhere but folks aren’t allowed to use them. Electric cars are not normalized.
Teslas and PHEVs are the only electric cars I can unreservedly recommend. Teslas (new ones at least) have substantial batteries, often comparable to standard gas cars, and extensive charging networks at high speed. Still kind of sucks if you can’t charge at home or work, but possible.
PHEVs are really where we need to go to massively normalize EVs. We could, today, replace everyone’s vehicle with a PHEV version (like a Volt) & everything would work fine. People would nag landlords to let them plug in, and it’d become a legitimate differentiation if apartments allowed plugging in (as it’d reduce the cost of energy for transport by a factor of 2-3), so competitive pressure would accomplish what landlords currently don’t allow because they’re lazy, poorly informed, and/or ambivalent about it.
Pure EVs should be at LEAST ~250 miles in range, and probably at least 100kW charge speed, too.
What we need is a mandate that by 2030, all new vehicles must be at least plug in hybrid. That’s way better than the 60% zero emissions cars by 2030 I’ve seen going around.
by hbarka on 5/3/21, 1:11 AM
There must be some reform for those living with a condo association.
by danhak on 5/3/21, 12:54 AM
by KozmoNau7 on 5/3/21, 9:04 AM
I live Copenhagen, and I've been looking at buying a car again, due to a job offer from a company a little ways outside the city, 25 minutes by car. Due to an unfortunate combination of where I live, the location of the company and public transit route planning, that same trip would necessitate going by bus, then two trains and another bus, a little over 1 hour in total.
So with that commute in mind, an electric car would be absolutely perfect. Even a smaller model with basic range would be plenty, if only I had somewhere to reasonably charge it. As with most other apartment buildings in Copenhagen, there is no dedicated parking, so we share a bunch of street parking with the surrounding buildings. I can't even park a car beneath my apartment window and run a power cable, since I would have to drape it across a sidewalk and a bike path.
Perhaps a nearby charging point could make it work, but the nearest public charging point is around 1km away, so I'd have to plug in the car, walk home, wait a bit, then walk back and get the car, since you can't just block a charging point forever once your car is charged.
If I had a garage, carport or dedicated parking spot, I would absolutely install a charger and drive an electric car, but that's not possible when you're not the owner of the spot where you park your car.
Instead I'll probably get a hybrid of some sort, but it feels like a cop-out when I absolutely could drive an electric car, based on my commute and even the 1,5-hour drive to visit my family.
We need more charging infrastructure, especially for apartment dwellers.
by cmer on 5/3/21, 12:42 AM
by grepLeigh on 5/3/21, 12:58 AM
by AgentK20 on 5/3/21, 1:12 AM
by etimberg on 5/3/21, 12:44 AM
by rekoros on 5/3/21, 12:44 AM
by ram_rar on 5/3/21, 8:43 AM
by 8bitsrule on 5/3/21, 1:11 AM
Many/most homes have access to 220v service. 80 amps at 220v will supply 40kW in 2-1/2 hours. http://garagechargers.com/ev-charging-calculations
Edit: This site estimates EV-station install costs by Zip code. (US average $750. Or about 200 gal of $4 gasoline.) https://www.homeadvisor.com/cost/garages/install-an-electric...
by pengaru on 5/3/21, 1:05 AM
If I had an EV back then the same practice would have worked perfectly fine.
But judging from the amount of negativity I received back then WRT powering my welder, I wouldn't be surprised if very few are being resourceful in this way. Even if they have an attached garage and access to appliance outlets somewhere in a rental, people seem to have an irrational fear of electricity.
by BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 on 5/3/21, 1:54 AM
I've heard the term "garage orphan". There's lots of inner city neighborhoods where the closest legal parking spot is too far to run an extension cord. Here in Canada there's a number of creative arrangements to run extension cords to block heaters in the winter if you need to get to work in a -30C morning. Bylaws can be an obstacle.
by potiuper on 5/3/21, 12:41 AM
by throwitaway1235 on 5/3/21, 1:12 AM
by voidfunc on 5/3/21, 12:59 AM
by electriclove on 5/3/21, 2:47 AM
by lumberingjack on 5/3/21, 9:41 AM
by vannevar on 5/3/21, 1:59 PM
by afavour on 5/3/21, 12:32 AM
by elihu on 5/3/21, 1:51 AM
There are a lot of reasons for people to do the latter that don't necessarily mean they're dissatisfied with their EV.
The article links to an abstract which is ambiguously worded, and the article is paywalled.
by debo_ on 5/3/21, 12:56 AM
by rasputnik6502 on 5/3/21, 12:20 PM
by sb057 on 5/3/21, 12:45 AM
What in the... A Level 2 charger is less than $500 online, and requires some rather simple wiring, even if you wanted to use an electrician's services, it would only take them a couple of hours maximum. Can the people purchasing the $43,000 Mustang Mach-E mentioned in the article really not afford the extra $1000 it takes to install Level 2 charging?