Not to mention the charging infrastructure is one of the reasons some people haven’t made the switch yet. Anything holding back charging expansion is a disaster in my view.
I don’t think that’s it at all. The cost of a new car, any new car, is still out of reach for the vast majority of Americans, much less a dedicated daily commuter vehicle (because you need a gas car for long trips). PHEV is an imperfect compromise, but there simply aren’t enough used PHEV models available on the market.
I bought a car last year, and I really wanted to get something electric, but the car I need just doesn’t exist at the price I can afford. Chargers didn’t factor into it.
You say “you need a gas car for long trips”, and “Chargers didn’t factor into it”.
Isn’t that directly contradicting? Why else do you feel like you need a gas car for long trips if it isn’t related to either not enough chargers or chargers still not being fast enough for you? Chargers absolutely factor into that part of why you didn’t buy electric yet.
But also, the notion that they can’t do long trips is already pretty outdated. There are very few places left where you would even need to take a detour to take a long trip in an electric car. The only downside is that charging at max speed takes about 3x as long as filling with gas still, and not every charging station is max speed. As that continues to improve, it’ll be less and less of a difference.
So, funding the R and D department of the charging network, as well as the construction of the charging network, are absolutely fundamental to more people adopting electric as their single vehicle choice. And not as their second vehicle only for one small purpose.
Not to mention the charging infrastructure is one of the reasons some people haven’t made the switch yet. Anything holding back charging expansion is a disaster in my view.
I don’t think that’s it at all. The cost of a new car, any new car, is still out of reach for the vast majority of Americans, much less a dedicated daily commuter vehicle (because you need a gas car for long trips). PHEV is an imperfect compromise, but there simply aren’t enough used PHEV models available on the market.
I bought a car last year, and I really wanted to get something electric, but the car I need just doesn’t exist at the price I can afford. Chargers didn’t factor into it.
You say “you need a gas car for long trips”, and “Chargers didn’t factor into it”.
Isn’t that directly contradicting? Why else do you feel like you need a gas car for long trips if it isn’t related to either not enough chargers or chargers still not being fast enough for you? Chargers absolutely factor into that part of why you didn’t buy electric yet.
But also, the notion that they can’t do long trips is already pretty outdated. There are very few places left where you would even need to take a detour to take a long trip in an electric car. The only downside is that charging at max speed takes about 3x as long as filling with gas still, and not every charging station is max speed. As that continues to improve, it’ll be less and less of a difference.
So, funding the R and D department of the charging network, as well as the construction of the charging network, are absolutely fundamental to more people adopting electric as their single vehicle choice. And not as their second vehicle only for one small purpose.