similar to the tipping point in the mid 2000s where LED/LCD high definition TVs became strictly cheaper than CRTs of the same size. CRTs were functionally dead within a few years.
This will be an interesting day to reflect on in the future.
"Battery cells at $50/kWh means the technology to decarbonize most of road transport globally is already here, as opposed to in some future scenario."
EVs are cheaper than ICE now. Today.
like ICE cars, CRTs had some drawbacks but also really did have some advantages over LED/LCD displays - better color reproduction, less latency - but these were completely swamped once the choice became more expensive.
It's worth considering why the media - with many outlets funded by or directly owned by oil interests - does so many stories about difficulties of long road trips in EVs and so few about how you can fill your car up at home and never visit a gas station or charger ever. bsky.app/profile/tom4...
I bought an EV in December. What has really surprised me, and I know I'm fortunate here because I own my own home, is how much more convenient it has been than the ice vehicle it replaced. Being able to essentially fuel your car up at home whenever you need is a complete game changer.
Seriously, how many "road trips" is the average adult taking in a year, compared to daily commuting and errands.
Tangential: we moved into a house with a larger lawn, I had to replace my 3 y. o. electric mower, the new model is better in every way than an ICE, and far better than the old electric.
It's always ridiculous how EVs are compared to more than a century of infrastructure built to help gas-powered vehicles. Maybe, it might take some time to be that convenient.
My bright idea is that there should be a category of rental cars for EV owners where the assumption is that it’s being taken on long trips, across state lines, for a while. EV dealers offering a certain amount of days at decent rate would help sales. Normalize renting gas car for road trips.
That's what I did for Lofoten, because I wasn't sure about the availability of chargers there (they exist, but not many). Also renting ICEs is cheaper than EVs.
But I made a 800+ km road trip in South Norway over three days in my IONIQ 5 without any range anxiety.
i love this idea! if charging infrastructure were built out a bit more in my town i'd be very happy to switch to an EV, and the savings would make it very economical to rent for long haul trips, but a dealer-run version would be a great sweetener.
Dealers have loaner cars for while yours are in the shop, so it wouldn’t be that big a stretch. Problem might be too many people wanting for say Thanksgiving, but that’s manageable.
This drives me potty too. Range anxiety is massively overblown as a concern. Most drivers rarely drive more than about 40-50 miles per day, so if charging overnight at home, the vast majority of people will rarely (if ever) have any range issues.
my car usage is like the diametric opposite of what an EV is best for. My daily commute is by foot, I drive errands like twice a month, and I do frequent 200+ mile trips to go out to customer sites. But I don't think I've *ever* met another person that is as much of an outlier as me on car use
That's the thing that surprised me most about my EV... I anticipated it being inconvenient, but its Its actually been more convenient in ~90% of situations.
Charge in my garage. More space & legroom. Run things off the battery. No scheduling maintenance. Can run heater &or AC when it's off etc...
We own an EV and the occasional road trip is still necessary enough that we keep our 2016 PHEV as a 2nd car. And I fill that up at a gas station every few months max. Home charging is great. And only need a basic outlet unless driving 100 miles a day.
Bf has an electric car and every time I have to fill my car’s gas tank I am jealous of him just plugging his car in.
And traveling long distance isn’t bad actually? Charging locations exist, and are usually places with window shopping or snacks available? Last time was near an ice cream shop.
My theory of the case is that this essential point will eventually filter its way into the normies at some point and when it does, the days of ice dominance will be over pretty quickly.
It’s really not a thing the big media talks about! I didn’t know with a home charger, your EV is always full until listening to a tech podcast hosted by an EV owner. Niche ass shit
At this point they’re having to go to absurd lengths to produce scaremongering stories about road trips.
The author of this piece later admitted they had used an online route planer and just chose the awful route
www.wsj.com/articles/i-r...
I honestly think this is one of the less discussed potential impacts of a second Trump term. He would try to, and would probably have success in, smother growing green industries in the US and put us, economically on the back foot. The rest of the world won't care.
It's funny you say CRTs have better color reproduction. When I worked with graphic artists, longer ago than a lot of people reading this have been alive, they joked "NTSC" meant "Never Twice (the) Same Color".
One thing I miss from ICEs in EVs is that the higher inertia of the torque made it easy to maintain constant speed and smooth ride. EVs are often way too sensitive to accelerator pedal.
I bought an EV in December. What has really surprised me, and I know I'm fortunate here because I own my own home, is how much more convenient it has been than the ice vehicle it replaced. Being able to essentially fuel your car up at home whenever you need is a complete game changer.
One of the things I've seen people most happy about, that seems to illude the general zeitgeist around EV ownership anyway, is that an EV means no more gas station stops.
"i can fill up my car in 5 minutes and be gone!"
Yeah, and I can just not go at all, ever.
I love that, too. My other unexpected value adds were that driving a silent car with the windows down and being able to hear everything around me makes a big difference in situational awareness, and having a gauge in front of me showing the effects of my driving style changed how I drive.
We've gone through a similar thing with solar. Not that long ago there were continual cranky moans about how PVs were always going to be too rare, too expensive, and too fragile to make significant inroads into utlity-scale power generation. And for a long time, that was correct. And then it wasn't.
I almost did it! If I hadn't pulled my usage data from the power company and figured out they were gonna charge me my monthly power bill for 54% of my annual consumption, I probably would have signed the thing.
To me the interesting part of the residential story was that a majority of the cost wasn't the cost of the panels coming down (that helped), but the development of unified installation systems (clips & mounting rods!) Great example of how the most boring shit in the world can have a massive impact.
A lot of these folks financed the install through a mortgage refinance using home equity, so ironically they might be better off today given mortgage rates five years ago. In California, if they are on NEMA 2.0, they’re probably also better off since the PUC keeps raising rates.
Only that as for now, I can't find on the European market a single small EV with an AWD or 4x4 drive, like an electric version of Suzuki Jimny (or other small Suzukis, basically).
Most EVs are too big!
