LeftieBiker said:
Gra, you are just brimming with reasons not to buy an EV, and also with impossible conditions that EVs must meet in order to be acceptable - to you. Range anxiety is the issue for most prospective EV drivers, not some libertarian opposition the the car limiting acceleration on long trips. Women, especially, want to GET THERE, and I think that most would happily allow the car to do what I proposed as long as it accomplishes that goal.
I'm brimming with reasons not to buy an BEV? You mean the general public is brimming with reasons not to do so, as every survey to date including the one at the head of this topic has shown. My specific requirements are way on one side of the curve, and not generally relevant to the typical consumer, but that's not to say that many of the same considerations don't apply to them - they obviously do. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was specifically focused on accel limitation, although that's a factor for some. No, I'm focused on price, range and charging limitations and the compromises which may be required (such as the one you mention) to overcome them.
LeftieBiker said:
Why not just change your signature to read "I'm going to use every sneaky, passive-aggressive way I can to slow the adoption of EVs, because I like my gas-powered Subaru." Between you and the guy who'd rather burn gas to cook because he likes the way it roasts peppers, This place is starting to resemble a very sophisticated troll farm.
Because that wouldn't represent my views, in fact it's diametrically opposed to them. As I've stated numerous times, I want us to get off fossil fuels ASAP, and I limit my own use of same as much as possible while meeting my other requirements, just as anyone who's concerned by this will do. I mean, anyone here want to give up both gas and induction ranges as well as fires, and rely on solar ovens exclusively for cooking? After all, that's the lowest cost and most environmentally benign cooking solution. I used to sell those, and will be happy to point you to such products or plans for building your own. Sure, compromises have to be made, but after all, the true believers are willing to do what's best for the environment regardless of the limitations it forces on them. So what if you have to do without cooked food for much of the year, it will take much longer to prepare, and you can never be sure just when a meal will be done?
I insist on looking rationally at what will prevent or slow down the shift from fossil fuels, and from the time I began posting here I've always tried to remind people that the general public's priorities aren't the same as early adopters, because the latter group tends to believe the public only needs to be shown the true and righteous path to see the light, and that it will be easy to convince them to have the same priorities as the early adopters do. Based on your knowledge of human behavior, does this seem realistic to you? If I'd been in any doubt, I confirmed that wasn't the case when I was selling off-grid AE systems a quarter century ago, where the same early adopter/general public divide existed. You can only persuade people to change if they want to change, and that requires that you give them a better option. And that's better according to THEIR priorities, not yours. Maybe you can convince them to adopt your priorities, but odds are you can't.
Compared to ICEs, BEVs currently don't match the priorities of the general public in the U.S., and most other countries for that matter, That's a fact, confirmed by the need to directly bribe or coerce people to buy them everywhere, except at the top end of the range where people can ignore rational calculations of transportation value for money. Which is why almost 9 years after production BEV introduction here we're at about 2% take rate, and that's driven almost entirely by cars at the higher end of the price range (which also come closest to meeting people's operational requirements) as well as perks like HOV access.
As the topic survey shows, the general public's concerns about BEVs have remained essentially unchanged all this time, so barring large-scale coercion of individual consumers here, we'll have to give them what
they want if that's to change. That's an affordable car which requires minimal thinking or planning to use, i.e. has acceptable operating range over the necessary life when driven by the majority of drivers, and an extensive and ideally ubiquitous and affordable charging infrastructure, as is the case with gas stations. Neither of these conditions is present as of yet although we're getting closer with cars, but until charging infrastructure is actually profitable to build and the electricity can be sold at a similar or lower price than gas, we're not going to see lots of QC sites, and the public won't be saying "Gee, a BEV really
is better, and I'm buying one". Do you disagree?
While some government mandates may be acceptable here (I'm a big fan of congestion pricing and emission-free zones), the sort of dictatorial "you will do this or else" approach possible in China just isn't going to happen. Even in China, NEV sales rates have fallen a lot since they reduced the subsidy, and we've got a lot more choices than they have, not to mention far more leverage over the government. So why would you expect rapid movement on our part, barring some catastrophic event like Greenland's glaciers all melting in the next 5-10 years, and large parts of Houston, Miami, NYC etc becoming permanently flooded, serving to concentrate the public's mind on an immediate threat which will undeniably affect them, in their taxes if not physically, rather than some uncertain, diffuse future threat that may not happen until after they're dead?