Fixed/semi-variable costs and high capex costs of oil production need to be covered by a shrinking base of users, maybe?

1. The “middle of the range” thing is the wrong mindset. People worry so much about preserving their theoretical future max range that they deliberately hobble themselves to 20 to 80% of their range today.
2. In five years, an EV will have lost 5 to 10% of its range. I can buy a second hand Renault Zoe today with easily more than 200 miles range. That’s far more than “just enough for your run into town”

Unless you’re talking about some remote corner of Texas, rural locations are great for EVs. Plenty of room at home for a domestic charger and often lots of land and roof space for solar & batteries too. Never need to get to a gas station again. How often are rural drivers travelling more than 300 miles in a day? Not very often, I’d wager.

The Big 3 better hope they can run at a profit in the US alone, because the current administration seems wholly committed to ensuring they will only make globally uncompetitive models: too big, shitty fuel economy, focused on ICE, non-existent pedestrian / vulnerable road user safety features, and poor quality and value for money thanks to a lack of home market competition.

Visiting the US is going to end up being like visiting Cuba, at this rate -- something relatively few visitors do, always mindful of the politics (including explaining themselves back home) and the streets full of old-fashioned cars that you don't see anywhere else.

Why? 100% is better than 99% is better than 90% etc. But 90% is better than 0%, too. So why be so binary? Being largely off-grid is still good, even if not as good as being totally off-grid.

Are they, though? If they swap every couple of hours, that's safe, surely? 2 hours on, 2 hours off is... fine.

And remember, this isn't about getting around locally, this is about giant road trips with 14 hours of driving. If you're telling me the DC charging network is capable of supporting htat across Canada in the winter, then I'm happy to hear it, but it feels like it may be some time away.

So there's a guy on here who has a usage pattern that works for ICE but not EV. It also happens to be my idea of hell on earth. He and his wife pack sandwiches and then drive almost continuously for hundreds and hundreds of miles and for 16 or 18 hours. They stop only to pee and switch from one driver to the other, five mins max, and every so often, they'll also refuel in that stop. An EV can't deal with that situation yet, especially in a Canadian winter with chargers being few and far between. But as I said, I cannot possibly imagine wanting to do this ever for any purpose, much less at the start and end of a holiday.

I dunno. I think what really matters is ubiquity and frictionless experiences. Thegarbz posted about what it’s like in the Netherlands. That’s what I’d like.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fcomm...

That is nutso. Only in America. The only European vehicles without DCFC are tiny quadricycles like the Ami.

We used to go to this little village in the Cotswolds that had a few streets with this kind of access. It was horrible, I always felt sorry for the residents

I’m sorry for your loss. May his memory be a blessing.

I’ve had three Renault Zoes and now a Mercedes EQA, and have had unequivocally great experiences with all of them, despite London traffic. I chose the EQA specifically because it’s only 4.4m long and 1.8m wide, so it’s pretty compact on the outside for an SUV, yet is much roomier and much nicer inside than my Zoe. So I can cope driving around north London even during busy times of day. I’ve no idea how people cope in their massive Cayennes etc.

If you have questions about EVs, feel free to ping me with them. It’s honestly been dead straightforward, and the charging network is just better and better all the time. Easiest way to test that is to go to Zapmap and play around in the areas where you might want to charge (eg when visiting an elderly aunt or near your house etc). It’s now pretty hard to find anywhere that’s more than 5 miles from a charger across the whole of the UK. Scottish Highlands in some spots, and that’s about it.

Come on in, the water’s lovely!

True, but bear in mind that Fluffernutter lives in a Canadian town and does these giant road trips, so that’s always in the back of his mind

It’s emergency stop of a charge, and it’s not solely for emergencies. It’s just a big red button labelled stop, like the ones you get on treadmills in a gym. No need to get your knickers in a twist about it

Nio is giving this a good try, but you won’t see it in the US any time soon. Other OEMs prefer the flexibility of built-in non-swappable batteries, rather like smartphone OEMs

I don’t know how it works in the US, but in the UK, motorway service stations are primarily focused on facilitating travellers to pee, crap, eat, drink, and buy stuff they forgot for their journey. Only a small percentage of people refuel or recharge. And anyway in the UK, many people in EVs will be setting off with a full charge and won’t need to charge en route, because trips of more than 250 miles are pretty uncommon, and destination charging is common.