The Electric Vehicle (EV) discussion thread (Merged)

Infoman said
I've seen some of these numbers... I think the EV market hits a hard wall at some point in a sense that - everyone who can afford one, and wants one... will eventually buy one... Then you have the "other half of the US" that doesn't live in a city... They live in the extended suburbs and rural areas... they grew up on mustangs, loud pipes, lifted trucks, hauling loads, dirt roads, ATVs, etc. Most of them won't have access to EV infrastructure any time in the near future... and good luck talking them into giving up the lifted F-250 on 35's for a Nissan Leaf or Rivian. Then you have the vast majority of the major inner city poor, broke college kids, lower-middle class trade and service workers, retired and elderly... They will never be in the market either... they can't even afford a car period... much less an EV.

Where are you getting this idea that EV is supposed to appeal to everyone in the United States? I don't understand this response - and you're by no means alone. My cousin, who drives a 1969 GTO, is always sending me these anti-EV memes and it's just weird. He drinks Coors Light, but I don't send him memes sheetting on Coors Light.

And if you're talking about the new car market, why would you need to talk about all of the people that can't actually participate in it - how is that relevant? But if you want to talk about economics of ownership, I think that the long term track of EV is more promising to provide low-cost cars to segments of the population that can't afford gasoline cars because the cost of operation is so much lower. Of course, I'm talking very long term but it's a new technology - there's so much possible.

Certainly we are seeing local fleet operations transitioning to EV purely on the fact that the cost of energy ("fuel"), maintenance costs, and lost time due to maintenance are so much lower that the cross-over point to justify the higher acquisition cost is fairly early in the life-cycle. Those kinds of economics will benefit consumers as well when the charging and range issues are resolved.

But if you can charge at your residence or work site and don't really need long range, the cost of ownership (after purchase) is substantially less - especially if you include time value calculations on not having to go get gas and the reduced time in scheduled maintenance and repair.