Many Americans still aren’t sold on going electric for their next car purchase. A poll shows high prices and a lack of easy-to-find charging stations are major sticking points.
they are. the problem is in the US there are no quality base models available. I would bet this penny I found on the floor that if automakers started to roll out less expensive EVs there would be less of these bullshit articles about how EVs are just not selling.
That’s because a brand new one is way too expensive for most people, and a used one is still expensive and could have half the range left in the batteries, you have no idea.
We need an EV mini wagon, like mid-80s Nissan Maxima wagon sized, and battery tech needs to get cheaper.
All the car manufacturers want to build giant boats now, as big as can possibly fit on the road and in parking spaces, because of their addiction to profit margins.
Yes, somehow the American car buyer has been bamboozled into thinking that a bigger car is "luxury" and a smaller car is somehow "lower end," so automakers price their larger cars higher even though the physical size has very little to do with the actual manufacturing cost.
Restoring some fuel economy (increasing range) to a used ICE car can be as simple as replacing spark plugs and cleaning fuel injectors. Even if you're not into doing that work yourself, that's not prohibitively expensive.
Doing the same for an EV entails replacing the entire EV battery, which is prohibitively expensive, and which a shadetree mechanic would be hard-pressed to do themselves.
Ngl I love my minivan. I can cart my wife, kids, and niblings...or a stack of 4x8 plywood and some 12ft linear boards.
I do wish station wagons were back though. The car would be so much better with a lower center of gravity.
I guess being so tall has the benefit of being easy to get in and out of, especially the third row...but hear me out...what ever happened to rear-facing third rows?
I wont buy an ev until they stop being mobile spying devices, especially considering the price tag. Same with any new/more efficient car. If that never happens, I just won’t ever have one. That’s the way it has to be because I am not a product, especially if I’m paying thousands of dollars. If it’s free, I’ll think about it.
I live somewhere that I can’t really survive without a car, but I’ve reduced my driving substantially (once a week now at most) I’d like to get an e-bike, but can’t really justify the spend at the moment.
Used is also a great option. Sure, you’re probably not going to find a deal on an electric, but from an ecological and cost perspective, using a piece of equipment that already exists is more environmentally friendly by a long shot than buying something new. I’ll be driving my 1.8t mk 4 Jetta into the ground, thank you very much (and then I will fix it, as I am the warranty at this point).
Used doesn’t fix the spying problem, only helps with the price. And that’s not even a guarantee anymore. So you aren’t wrong, but it doesn’t help the issue I specifically have with them (which I have with all newer cars).
My current car is 2012 civic coupe, and if I don’t drive it much, it’s perfectly fine for what I use it for without upgrading, other than that it’s starting to need bigger work more frequently, and not stuff I know how to do. Decent mileage and all, but fully ice. I’d like to upgrade to electric or at least hybrid, but they all have the same spying problem. So I just cut driving as much as I can. I live in a rural town, closest grocery store is half an hour away by highway, so zero driving isn’t an option, unfortunately.
Even if we made enough to buy them, the infrastructure is still not great to support the people who need them most. Live in an apartment? Maybe you're lucky enough to have chargers nearby but for millions of Americans they can't charge at home. If I have to go somewhere to charge that adds time to my commute either to work or on the way home. If I'm already spending an hour or more on the road each day just in commute time that 15 minute charge every other day or what have you adds up.
More people need to feel comfortable asking for chargers in their apartments' meetings. As one lady was scared of being chewed out for supporting new technology.
I don't disagree with that but I have never been to an apartment meeting in my life. I have lived in apartments for the last 15 or so years, and most of them have been owned by huge conglomerates who barely fix amenities when they break. I waited on a tap for my tub for about a week, a replacement garbage disposal for about 6 months. The drain for the pet grooming shed was flooded for about 2 months before they did anything about it at the most recent place. They let the gutters freeze and fall off the building during the winter and didn't replace them til 8 months later. EV chargers are just not something I think the management would even care about unless it's making them money. And even then they'd weigh that against the number of people living there who drive EV's and probably decide against it.
I have a few friends with EVs who live in apartments. Some people can charge at work or while shopping. When nothing lines up, sitting at a supercharger once every few weeks isn't terrible.
Depends on their lifestyle a whole lot. That's the point. If you're single with no kids? Doesn't seem like spending 20 minutes a week to charge is a lot. If your commute is about 20 minutes each way? That may be fairly reasonable. My husband drives 71 miles each way per day 5 days a week. He can't charge at work and there are no chargers in the area. Our apartment complex doesn't have chargers. The closest ones are a 15-20 minute drive away and always packed. This is what I mean when I say it's doable for some but not for all or even a majority.
You know, I think it's not as bad as this anymore. While one of the best convenient features of EVs is waking up to them charges every day, not having that and having to use public charging isn't necessarily different than having to get gas.
I do have EVs but I also have a motorcycle. I hate filling it up because where I live waiting in line for the pump is a 15 minute ordeal usually. The few times I've used public charging around here that's about how long it took for me to get it done.
My work does have chargers, but they are expensive so I don't use them.
Here's my point:
You have to charge roughly as often as you need to get gas. If you don't have access to a charger where you live it's still worth it because it's so much cheaper, even if it's slightly inconvenient. If you don't have fast chargers near you though I doubt this works.
I just went back and looked at my charging stats, and for two cars I'm averaging between $38-$42 / month since 2022.
Road trip supercharger costs are higher, averaging $14 per stop.
I'm not personally interested in owning a Tesla, and none of the other EVs I know of really appeal to me, at least not at the prices I've seen them at. Last year we got my wife a Rav4 hybrid. It's been a great car, we're really happy with it.
I have no idea why someone downvoted you. I don't align exactly with your opinion, but your opinion is valid and you insulted nobody by giving it. Upvote to restore sanity.
Well if there were places you could actually get them charged. Living in an apartment complex as I do, I don't really have an option here. A hybrid would be nice, but I'm also dirt-ass poor. So shitty busted used car it is.
I don't want to buy a multi-ten thousand dollar tablet that I climb inside and it spies on me. Take the dumb bullshit out, give me a simple interface with mostly physical buttons.
Well I don't want every single company in the world to have access to every bit of info.
And I don't own a house and there aren't enough chargers around.
I work two jobs/minimum 90 hours a week already, I don't have the time or inclination to waste what little free time I do have sitting 30 minutes from home in my car waiting for it to charge for an hour
What Biden push? The one where he slaps 100% tariffs on the cheapest EVs in the world so that American companies can continue charging an exorbitant premium for EVs? Sorry, the tax credit which the car companies have jacked prices up far beyond isn't enough in this scenario.
You are skeptical about EVs because you’re afraid of change.
I am skeptical about EVs because modern cars, regardless of propulsion type, are pervasively networked and festooned with sensors, and generally have live connections to servers somewhere, sending who knows what to who knows where (because it’s all proprietary, and can’t be easily explored outside of reverse engineering).