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An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that’s the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.
Range anxiety is largely a perception thing. The vast majority of car journeys are well within the range of an EV, you just need to get in the habit of plugging in like you would your phone. For journey’s long enough for it to be more than a single charge you really should be stopping for more than a few seconds anyway as you need recharging.
If you live in the Balkans, you can hardly charge your electric car anywhere and if you go on holidays, It takes way longer, since you have to recharge multiple times and it takes a couple of hours.
you just need to get in the habit of plugging in like you would your phone
Yeah but not everyone lives in suburbia with ample plug-in options available to them. Where I live the street-side charging spots are usually occupied, and the parking spot that I rent has no charging.
For journey’s long enough for it to be more than a single charge you really should be stopping for more than a few seconds anyway as you need recharging.
True to some extent, I have to check my travel logs but I do feel like stopping for an hour every 300km or so is longer and much more often than I would normally stop on long road trips. My (diesel) car has a range of well over 1000km so often I stop for only 15 minutes for a coffee and to stretch my legs, or just for a restroom stop and a driver swap. We usually plan just one big stop (1h) for dinner. Most destinations I’ve been to I could reach without refueling at all.
There’s also the issue of contention for charging spots. On gas stations near the big highways towards popular destinations you often already have to queue to get gas. This will become worse when EVs become common place and people occupy a charging spot for an hour instead of a fuel pump for 30 seconds to top up.
Little anecdote: every year around the holiday season, there are several company wide e-mails from EV driving co-workers requesting to swap cars (with a co-worker who has a CE car) to go on holiday. So I think the practical experience may not be as rosy as you paint it.
Okay, but it is still jumping through hoops which doesn’t exist with gas cars. What if I have 3 people driving, like in a road trip? You can’t continuously drive after refueling anymore. It isn’t just a perception thing, it absolutely requires planning and stops you wouldn’t take otherwise.
jumping through hoops which doesn’t exist with gas cars.
You have to physically drive to a different location to get petrol. That’s a hoop. Just because you’re used to it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
What if I have 3 people driving, like in a road trip? You can’t continuously drive after refueling anymore. It isn’t just a perception thing, it absolutely requires planning and stops you wouldn’t take otherwise.
It is a perception. The vast majority of trips this won’t be an issue. In the once in a bluemoon that you’ll be driving more than the range of the car, yes, it could be. This is where it’s perception. People seem to think that they’ll run commuting to work or half the journeys they take will be affected. Whereas it’s really really rare.
So what you are saying is “I don’t care about the points you raised” essentially. I said specifically “hoops that don’t exist with gas cars” not “gas cars don’t have hoops to jump through”. Electric cars have issues with trips longer than their range, which you then need to charge for a very long time compared to just refueling the gas car.
You jump through all sorts of hoops with gas cars. We’ve all made it part of the habits of our lives and don’t think about them, but they’re absolutely there.
I’d honestly love to just plug in every night instead of having to spend time getting gas every week. Sure it’s only a few minutes, but that’s probably a few hours of my life every year. Getting an electric vehicle and renting cars for road trips would honestly make much more sense for me.
Unfortunately, it looks like it’d be financially irresponsible for me to buy an electric car right now while I still have a perfectly functional ICE car.
You’re arguing in favor of quickly swappable batteries.
China’s got your back.
https://hbr.org/2024/05/how-one-chinese-ev-company-made-battery-swapping-work
It’s not going to work out. Battery connections need to be standardized across manufacturers, which is a lot more complicated than standardizing a plug. The garages to do swaps are a lot more complicated than chargers. It forces certain decisions on battery placement, which cuts out things like integrating the battery into the frame to save weight.
Charger deployment has raced ahead. We need a lot more of them to support the EVs we already have, and need even more for the EVs that are going to be purchased over the next decade. Switching over to swapping would send the EV market into whiplash that just isn’t necessary.