The first question I always get about my EV is “how long does it take to charge?” Most people can’t wrap their head around the concept of waking up every day with a full battery.

I dunno man, the 5 minutes a week at a gas station doesn’t really seem like that much of an inconvenience. Especially if you live in a state that taxes EVs more than gas cars, my home state taxes EVs so heavily that it’s more expensive, even with fuel costs considered.

Winter and summer conditions are also an issue where I live, temps from very cold to very hot, sometimes within the same week, and the fact that most of the people who live around me who can afford an EV, are in fact taking routine road trips. Often to go camping where EV support is pretty minimal. Meaning at minimum, 1 car cannot be an EV.

Like, I get it. I’ve been trying to convince my wife to let me buy a sprinter van EV. Because you can’t get a decent pick up truck EV for a reasonable price. And even if you could you’re locked in to one of those giant 4 door monstrosities with a minimum sized bed.

We’re not even going to talk about the horrifying lack of an affordable station wagon EV, at least in the US (Peugeot’s got one coming in Europe at least), honestly that’s the biggest crime here.

I mostly agree with you, but there is barrier to entry cost.

If you have the ability to charge at home and aren’t making 1000 mile trips very often, there is basically no reason to not have an EV.

Well, except for reasons not to have any car at all, of course.

Was the cost benefit worth it? How much more did you pay for the EV? Did you do it to reduce your carbon footprint and if so have you evaluated how dirty your local grid is (the remote combustion fallacy of EVs)?

I think the bigger issue with EVs (at least in the USA) is that there’s a huge gap between what EV’s actually are and what EV industry players are claiming EV’s are and can be. It makes EV conversations divisive and ripe for misinformation.

This idea that batteries should ever be used in trucking and heavy machinery (before massive boosts to battery capacity and sustainability/recycling) is a total crock of shit. The idea that you’re doing the environment or yourself a favor by buying an electrified SUV or truck is a crock of shit. Buying a vehicle with 250mi+ of range using today’s battery tech is bad for the environment.

Small to medium sized commuter vehicles and delivery vans/fleet vehicles with < 50kWh batteries are prime EV candidates. EV buyers need to charge at home and drivers need to change their behavior, not chase 300 miles of range at the expense of the environment.

Everything else is better off with a hybrid engine for the very distant foreseeable future.

Instead, buyers are unloading perfectly good ICE vehicles for EV’s with 100kWh+ batteries and companies like Tesla are destroying the credibility of the EV industry with their stupid stunts and ridiculous EV semi claims. Others are making a bad problem worse by ratcheting up the consumerism and disposability of vehicles in the EV space by building premium vehicles that are inevitable purchased as a second or third car, completely negating any environmental benefit of the vehicle.

These buyers and industry players are making EV’s easy targets for an anti-EV crowd which wants to undermine the truly green and sustainable aspects of an automotive technology shift.