Comment by ninkendo
5 days ago
It’s range anxiety and it’s real. And it’s not entirely unjustified. Where I live in the Midwest I have literally never seen a public charging station. I know they exist because I can search for them on maps app and I see dots, but it speaks to their general small numbers that I’ve never seen one in person that I can remember.
Now, prior to this, I lived in California for many years from 2011 until 2019, and I saw tons of EV charging stations there. I left with the impression of “wow, charging stations are everywhere”, and that was 7 years ago.
But now in my Midwest metro area, I can honestly say there are zero that I can think of within a 10 mile radius of my house. Not one. (They’re out there somewhere, but they gotta be tucked away because I never notice them enough to remember them.)
It’s no small wonder that all my friends from California drive electric cars, and all my friends from this area (near my childhood home, so I know lots of people) think EV owners are crazy. [0]
If EV charging stations were visibly everywhere and charged in 5 minutes I could say without a doubt that every one of them would be swayed. So I don’t think they’re being irrational at all.
- [0] It is common to go on long road trips here, since the weather sucks, and people really don’t want to rent a car to do it. Plus a ton of people tow shit. Half my friends have campers and the other half have boats.
Most current EV owners charge at home for daily needs, you really only need charging stations for long distance and owners w/o options where they park (i.e. renters or street parking only) Even with street parking, I see lots of people running cables across the sidewalk (with safety / step covers thankfully)
I drove across the country and accounted for midwest charging. Generally the rocky mountain states are minimal, but I was not without a charger ever 30-40 minutes of travel time through the midwest. Most of them are either in Big Store parking lots or at gas stations like Casey's. You need far fewer of them than gas stations, so we should expect to see fewer of these vehicle refill stations in the future anyway
Yep. Mine is always charged at home, and so I've never needed to use a charging station locally. They're around just by virtue of the area being part of a major metro, but I haven't needed them.
I haven't yet done a cross-country drive but would like to and have plotted out routes with ABRP, and yes, there's more in the midwest states than you'd think. Enough that just about any EV with EPA 250mi range or better can manage a long haul trip without too much trouble (just with a few more bathroom/snack/coffee stops).
yup ABRP was awesome for the trip, nothing out there comes close
Be warned, as you approach and cross the Rockies, there is a lot of uphill and wind. Didn't mention this, but I also did the trip in early March, temps were just above freezing most of the trip, range was terrible. There's a spot in NE, which I'll never forget. Only stop in the middle of a long gap in stations, steepest incline in NE, blew through most a charge in 90 miles. Then the charger is old and very low charge rate (like 5+ year old speeds). The saving graces are (1) public restroom (2) Awesome awesome coffee shop owner who made me a nice brew after hours when I asked him where I might find one as we passed on the sidewalk.
WY was worse on the charger infra, most unreliable and sketchy part of the trip (mostly because of snow in the mountains as temps dropped below freezing, but also the worst charging infra at any point)
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Yes, I think people mistakenly believe that if chargers aren't as ubiquitous as gas stations, there must not be enough of them. Range anxiety can still happen on a cross country trip, but not for the vast majority of daily driving. Now, if you live in an apartment building where it's difficult to charge at home, it's a different story. Not so much because of range anxiety, but because the cost of public fast charging rivals and sometimes exceeds the cost of gasoline.
I suspect that the causation runs the other way. They think EV owners, Californians, and anyone who doesn't smell like petroleum is crazy. Therefore they won't buy electric cars and so nobody builds charging stations.
I can only speak for the people I know well (I know people from lots of different backgrounds here), but I can confidently say that every one of them would love EVs if charging stations were everywhere and charged in 10 minutes.
There may be a real chicken-and-egg problem with building the charging stations, but if it were magically fixed and ultra fast charging stations were ubiquitous overnight, I think minds would change overnight as well. It’s just nobody has the motivation to take the financial hit to build them and jump-start things.
My point being that they’re not irrational, and it’s not EV hatred that is driving it.
The biggest issue is that people think EV's are gas cars that have electricity instead of gasoline, with the main difference being you have to sit at the "gas pump" for 45 minutes instead of 2.
But the way you daily an EV is totally different than a gas car, and even the way you travel is totally different. People have no concept of EV ownership, so they just go with the gas model that they know. But it is totally incorrect.
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> I can confidently say that every one of them would love EVs if [...]
And I can confidently say I see rural pickup owners rolling coal about weekly, so no, they will not be loving EVs, because it hampers them destroying their surroundings.
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> My point being that they’re not irrational, and it’s not EV hatred that is driving it.
That's just your particular bubble. I have met very few anti-EV folk who were not deeply political about it. They don't oppose EVs on rational grounds, they only have the talking points. Matters not at all to them that the talking points were proven false years ago.
With my plugin hybrid I have currently the best of both worlds. The 2x25km commuting is electric, and longer weekend drives are gas. And being in Europe, I am not worried about charging stations for whenever I'll switch to full electric - I enjoy taking gas station breaks. I know it's only one data point, but it's my data point :)
I'm in California, and cost per mile of electricity vs gasoline is pretty similar in a Gen 1 Chevy Volt. I get 35 miles per gallon. That's also how for I can go on 10kwh in the good conditions. If gasoline is below $4.50 a gallon, it's cheaper to just run the volt on gasoline than it is to charge it at home.
That's particular to PG&E, as I recall, not all the utilities in California are so horribly mismanaged or got sued for burning an entire city to the ground. IMO the state should burn PG&E to the ground and replace the entire management structure with people who don't suck.
It’s also the case for me in the Midwest. I drive a Chrysler Pacifica PHEV and it gets about 32 miles per gallon and 32 miles on a charge, and a 16KWH battery. Electricity is $0.22 during peak hours, which equates to a breakeven point of $3.52 per gallon. Non-peak is $0.18, which is a breakeven of $2.88 per gallon. Gas is usually around $3 per gallon so I have to remember to not charge it until after 7pm (this is a setting you can set in the car to make it automatic.)
I’ve since bought solar panels for my house so it makes charging a lot more obvious, but I think it’s actually quite common for people to be paying more for charging than for gas.
Where I live (Ōtepoti Aotearoa) charging at a charging station works out to be about the same price as petrol
I have a plug in hybrid, and close to zero expertise, but I only charge at home, now
I am doubtful that an EV is remotely economical if you cannot charge it at home
That is basically correct in the US as well. Fast charging is about the same cost per mile as gasoline. If your only way to charge the car is with a fast charger, I recommend considering carefully whether it's the right choice for you. The improved driving dynamics may still be worth it, for sure, so it's a very personal choice -- rarely do big purchases like this come down entirely to the bottom line cost.