Featured Reasons behind the slowness of EVs adoption in US

I wasn't talking about PHEVs, I was talking about BEVs. PHEVs can be used as conventional cars - you don't ever have to plug them in if you don't want to.

 

I don't think a lot of people are intune with the hybrid and EV movement. They have their heads buried in the sand and they live their life status quo. How many dealerships have an EV sitting on the showroom floor, and used ones on their car lots to catch peoples eye. Life is easy when gas is cheap.

 

Sure its all about defining the problem. Those that are anti plug-in want to pretend phevs can't run most of their miles electrically. The US defined it rather agnostically and included phevs and bevs as electric vehicles, and that's the definition I like. I assume you agree.

California seems to draw an artificial distinction, and I believe its mainly just politics. Put a 7 gallon gas tank and engine on a 150 mile bev and it becomes a phev (and somehow not an EV (even those are the last 2 letters in the acronym), but a 60 mile bev where a second car is used when the bev doesn't go far enough well that is a bev and gets special rights. Then the fuel cell lobby tells you we need to support hydrogen more than bevs because if the state builds fueling station they can fuel faster than that plug-in, because of course allowing phevs in the definition would remove the reason for the high subsidies. I know you aren't in that camp. The prime is in just about every way a better vehicle than the mirai, and if they built a dedicated 30 mile aer phev with the same interior dimentions, cargo space, and quality it would be much less expensive with much better performance.

 

Maybe this has been mentioned already in this thread. If it has, sorry for the repeat. After all, the EV movement was initiated and spread to curve the CO2 emission and thus counter the catastrophic consequences of climate change. Now, the simplest Reasons behind the slowness of EVs adoption in the US is that there are so many deniers in this country, starting from the top officials as all of you know. Sad to say it, but I have a doubt this trend is going to change any time soon.

 

I definitely separate PHEVs from BEVs because they are drastically different.

PHEVs can run on either of two fuels, or a mixture. BEVs can run on just one fuel.
PHEVs can use the existing fast-fueling infrastructure. BEVs can't.
PHEVs can have far more total range the BEVs of today.
PHEVs can be used as conventional cars or hybrids going entirely without charging, BEVs cannot go without charging.
The long-range, high-energy portion of a PHEV approaches 1,000WH/kg, while a BEV barely manages 200WH/kg.
PHEVs can be comparable in price to conventional cars or cheaper with tax credits, BEVs designed to do the same job (long range BEVs) can not.

 

There are fewer deniers than there are people who won't buy current BEVs. I won't buy a current BEV and I'm the exact opposite of a denier, having spent most of my life and my entire career working on this exact problem, passing up opportunities to continue doing what I consider important work.

That said, I don't think people like you do the planet any justice by saying the consequences of climate change are catastrophic. They're bad, for sure, but we can adapt to them. The cost will be substantial, in material and in lives, but there are other more catastrophic things that could happen to us that would be harder to adapt to. I'm more worried about war, infectious disease and over-population than I am about climate change. I'd probably even put willful ignorance - such as that which creates climate change deniers - above climate change as a risk to our society. In fact, I'd even put resource depletion above climate change, and that's a higher motivation for me to work on this problem than climate change.

Climate change is up there, though. It's going to be nasty and expensive, for sure. But that's nothing compared to a flu or antibiotic-resistant bacteria epidemic that wipes out half the population, or a war that does the same thing.

 

Sympathetic to that argument here, but have not found it to be true in my experience.

Few of our left leaning friends own or lease a BEV or PHEV but firmly believe in anthropogenic climate change. It's hard to directly challenge them on that - certainly feels like a discrepancy. But when talking about vehicles, several have still related their reason for not going plug-in is that they are not as convenient and affordable to them as their ICE vehicles.

Humans are strange creatures.

 

Great .... now everyone knows (for at least the 10th time) that even a long-range quick charging electric car doesn't work for the outlier who regularly drives hundreds of miles and doesn't have another car. Only the 90%. Thank you once again, for the Pearls of Wisdom.
Like Bob said, the parable of the stork & the fox eating a meal together. It's not all about me, Uncle Joe, or I .... I ..... I. aye aye?

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Not for me. I like the performance that lets me scoot across an intersection faster than the 'honorable competition.'

Bob Wilson

 

not for many either. Many like the notion of never having to get a smog check. Many like the notion of not having to do oil changes. Many like the notion of never going to a gas station again. Many like the notion of running their vehicle in an enclosed garage and not suffering from toxic fatal fumes. Many like the notion of leaving more non-renewables to Future Generations. Probably other reasons too but that's just off the top.
CAVEAT: these & other reasons are irrelevant to the 10% outliers.

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I do have another car. Why should I need one other than for my wife to have a car too?

And now everyone knows, for at least the 10th time, that you severely over-estimate the number of people for whom a short-range (300 miles) BEV will work as their do-everything car.

The actual number is closer to 1% than to 90%.

 

My Prime needs an oil change once a year, but every car needs tire rotations twice as often. So that once-a-year oil change isn't an inconvenience at all.

Doing it myself, it literally takes half the time to do an oil change as it takes to do a tire rotation.

BEVs are dependent on the 70% of our electricity generated from non-renewable sources.

 

most of my friends, family and acquaintances are democrats. almost all of them drive gas guzzlers and expect government policy to solve environmental and geopolitical problems

 

link?
LOVE to see the stats on that angry/contrived reality. Not wanting to make anyone in la la land start reeling.... but for the facts - read up.

New Study Reveals When, Where and How Much Motorists Drive | AAA NewsRoom

Sorry
but yea ... that 'short-range' 300 milevEV fits nornal folk.
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True. But for both, electricity comes from many fuels

Fast charging is changing this. But with an EV you get a full tank every night

 

So why is "blame" being assigned? In this Country, a person is free to buy and drive what ever they desire, need and/or can afford. My current stable consists of a Prius, RAV4 HV and a 455 ci Toy that gets single digit mpgs. Does that make me a lessor person than someone who only rides their bicycle and a BEV...or...better than the person that flies to work everyday? Has this become a discussion about the morality of choice?

 

I can't believe you said that. BEVs run on one fuel - electricity. They cannot run on any of electricity's feedstocks.

No, with an EV you get a half a tank every night.

A full tank in my cars is 480 or 640 miles of range. EVs typically start with 80-275 miles of range each day, assuming you can charge at home.

 

He said electricity comes from many sources, which is not an incorrect statement. Please don't twist people's words. Not cool.

 

if any of my thoughts / links are aversive, I apologize. Your statements are true about everyone having a free choice to get where they're going based in a manner that works out best - weather that's based on analytical studies, personal bias, ignorance, extraneous subjective notions etc. Hopefully we PC members will generate more light than heat from the dialogue, despite what sometimes comes across as far-to-one-sided/polarized shots across the bow.
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I probably drive 15 miles on a normal day and those are 90%. I drive 110 miles on maybe 8% of my days. and 300 miles on only 2% of my days. Yet my concern is for the 2% where I have a limited time allocated to get to a funeral, to get to a reunion, to get to a dinner. I drive in all sorts of range depleting weather and for safety, I must keep up with 70 MPH traffic..

So my wife is going to get the next new car. Is she going to get the SUV form factor she wants. You bet she is. I'll be very lucky to persuade her to consider a Hybrid. Can't say there are plug-ins of any manufacturer around now or within a year that aren't twice what a hybrid will cost.