Every EV owner in my area seems to also own a gas car too. My landlord commutes in an EV but his wife has a normal suv for all the kid stuff. (Im in BC where long higheay trips are very much the norm.) EVs are fine if you can afford to keep a second vehicle to cover all the things they cannot do.
BC is a bit of an exception because of the low density. In a higher density area, you can count on public transit to take you long distances and use the electric car to make up the difference.
One of the benefits of going full electric would be smog reduction. Again, BC doesn't really have a smog problem because of low density, but somewhere like Toronto or LA would benefit hugely from not having gas and diesel vehicles clogging up the streets (and air).
BC's density is both low and high. For the entire population, it is very low. But if you start with something like 80% of the population, that lives in two or three tiny places, basically the GVRD, Victoria and Kamloops. The BC population is best described as being very dense but surrounded by vast areas of emptiness. Draw a line from West Vancouver (one of canada's most expensive suburbs) to alaska. You will cross only two roads. Dense urban city, a small fence, then thousands of miles of nothing.
This is probably a reflection more of the demographic that can own EV's: wealthy people, likely older with children. Personally if there were a good EV in my price range (perhaps the model 3) I would have no need for a gas-powered car. I don't regularly need a large range and on the once-very-few-months occasion where I do need more range, I can just rent a car
I guess I don't understand the original post then. Of course if you live in a rural area you'll need a car with longer range than an EV. Most people don't live in rural areas, so most people won't need to own a gas powered car to go alongside their electric car.
It just seems like an unfair complaint about electric vehicles - the problem isn't the EV's, but people buying them without having a good use for them. I don't buy a jackhammer and then complain that I have no use for it
There are certainly good use cases for them but one of the best ones is as a second vehicle. That's more or less the situation I have in an exurban locale. An SUV for weekend trips, snow, hauling stuff and (in my case) a small good gas mileage car for most local trips.
What I wouldn't do is give up the ICE SUV. There's no way I'm going to deal with the hassle of a rental or the uncertainty of a charger system whenever I have a longer drive unless the economics became really compelling.
The classic mom-with-kids is on the road all day. EVs dont have the range/endurance to do the school runs, shopping, then haul the kids to sports. Ive also never seen one even attempt to haul the boat to the lake for a weekend, a very middle class thing in my area. (Rich people dont store thier boats at home.)
A Bolt can certainly do everything you mentioned, except possibly haul a boat. You can fully recharge at home overnight with an inexpensive Level 2 charger. And a new Bolt is definitely cheaper than most new SUVs.
As i sit here in the snow waiting for my car to warm up and my windows defog, as they close the road i need to drive today, im glad not to worry about charging stations. I have 130km of BC mountain driving ahead of me. I need heat+range, two things EVs dont do well.
I know two couples who have replaced one of their ICEs with Nissan Leafs. Now one of them is economically commuting in an EV daily and they retain the ability to take road trips in their partner’s car.
But I don’t see a reasonable way for a single person to have only an EV in my area either. There’s just too much >50 miles away.
250 mile EV's can make 500 mile day trips just fine as long as you can use a charging network. IC's are better if you're doing that every weekend, but most people don't drive over 200 miles a day very often.
Over the last 20 years a 250+ mile range electric would have worked fine for every trip I have actually taken. (Assuming the current charging infrastructure.) Now, with slightly different habits renting an SUV 0-4 times a year is minimal effort and cost.
So, yea if you do 1000+ mile trips monthly without flying then electric is not going to work, but that's unusual.
You arent driving very far then. 250km is barely an afternoon on the road. Im doing some training next month in comox, 260km away from work. Im expected to drive there and back in the same day.
250 miles is 402 km. It's well over 3 hours at highway speeds, which IMO is the limit for any reasonable day trip as a recharge while you're there means it's really 6+ hours per day of driving.
Granted, this assumes you can charge at that location, but EV charging stations are plentiful.
EV chargers exist in many areas, but fast chargers are much thinner on the ground.
So currently, you need to park by a non-fast-charger for 6+ hours at your destination if you want to consume your full range one way. And if all the chargers are in use/broken when you arrive, you’re pretty screwed. Broken is surprisingly common, there appears to be an agency problem with charger maintenance.
I was disappointed to realize this; I’m going to have to borrow a Prius to make my winter break 300 mile road trip. My wife just wasn’t interested in the adventure of searching for available, not currently broken chargers to get the extra 75 miles of range we’d need.
Tesla owners have a better experience in this regard.
I generally assume this is just growing pains, their are over 1/2 million Tesla model 3 reservations. The end point is going to be most parking spaces having a charging station operated at a slight profit. Or possibly even in road charging for absolutely unlimited range.
Depends on how you run the numbers, saving 1,000+$/year on gas adds up. Maintenance costs are tricky as you do need to replace the batteries, but IC cars also have a lot of expensive repairs that are not relevant on electric cars.
It's the used electric car market that's going to be really interesting. A new battery could for example be longer range than the initial battery, and we are looking at sub 100$/kwh batteries very soon.
