Comment by pstuart
14 hours ago
The current admin is actively hostile to EVs, but I think the real problem was the chicken and egg issue of charging stations: they wouldn't be built because there wasn't enough demand for them and EVs would be limited in sales because they wouldn't have chargers to use on the road.
This is where Tesla made a huge difference with Supercharger stations. I am no fan of Elon, but that work was fundamental in making EVs viable in America.
Nevertheless, there seems to be zero buy-in from commercial players in the US. It's such a weird uphill battle.
I live in the US, but every summer I spend a month in Sweden, and the past two years I've rented EVs for the entire stay, and the buildout of chargers these past 4-5 years has been astonishing. It's gone from crap to fantastic in a very short time, and that's without massive government intervention or subsidies or screaming and cajoling.
Because in Sweden, the primary driver of charging stops along highways and in the cities are gas stations.
They already make all their profit from incidental purchases and not the gas itself, so them pivoting to EV charging stops makes perfect sense. They already have the infrastructure in place to sell you overpriced hotdogs and coffee and snacks for your road trip, they already have restrooms in place.
But they also do the same in the cities, it seems like every city gas station has also put up a couple of 350W charging stations. It's not half-assed, they mean business. They all see the writing on the wall, in neighbouring Norway EV's are 90+% of all new car sales, Sweden is at ~30% right now, and climbing, so gas stations will go out of business if they don't pivot to EV charging.
It's fundamental market economy forces at work, the kind of stuff that the US normally prides itself of.
So why is that not happening in the US?
I think it's because the incumbents do not know how to build competitive, desirable, affordable EVs. I'm just an armchair observer, but that makes a fair amount of sense.
The other part is that a lot of money is made in the production and sale of fuel and those players have significant influence in how things work -- this is evident in the Trump admin's demonization of renewables and going all in on fossil fuels.
Watching all this craziness from the sidelines is crazymaking and heartbreaking. We can only keep China at bay for so long, and then when the dam breaks the domestic auto makers are going to go down, along with the whole economic ecosystem that supports them. It doesn't have to be this way...
Oh, right, the US has this weird Tesla oligopoly.
In Europe, Tesla generally has a single-digit EV marketshare, so over 90% of consumers don't care about or use the Supercharger network, and are obviously demanding charging locations.
Two years ago in Sweden I rented a random Chinese EV , a NIO ET7, and its onboard navigation system was fully connected to all the major charging networks, so I could see charging stations, their speeds, and open stalls directly in the car navigation, no external apps needed. So there's a whole perfectly functioning non-Tesla ecosystem, and pretty much everything is tap-to-pay, so no apps, no registrations, no memberships, no nothing. And no lock-in.
Kinda ironic that Teslas big start and Supercharger buildout is now holding the US back compared to the rest of the world.