Remember the old addage... DON'T put all your eggs in one basket !

Detroit all mfgrs seem to be doing that going all EV-- but the alleged exotic long-life batteries are still not available and what will they cost?

Travel distances seem to be being ignored--- and the promise of recharge 

stations is still a long way off!

It seems they want to put the horse out to pasture, but the electric buggy is not a workable substitute yet!

25 minutes ago, rkmdogs said:

Remember the old addage... DON'T put all your eggs in one basket !

Detroit all mfgrs seem to be doing that going all EV-- but the alleged exotic long-life batteries are still not available and what will they cost?

Travel distances seem to be being ignored--- and the promise of recharge 

stations is still a long way off!

It seems they want to put the horse out to pasture, but the electric buggy is not a workable substitute yet!

 

Welcome back, been a while since 2016 since you posted. Great to have you back.

Yes, many places and I do understand that Florida is very much against EVs by the local governments, but in many other states especially the west coast, charging is very common and easy to get too. States that are embracing the change for cleaner air is also embracing the needed change to how things are taxed, charged, etc. As such, EVs are well embraced in some place and less so in others.

I think since all OEMs have stated to stop production of ICE autos from 2030 to 2035 that this is more than enough time to continue to build up the infrastructure that supports rapid charging and get people comfortable with EVs.

Many versions of Solid-State batteries are already going into production to replace the current Lithium batteries by 2025. Even GM has stated that they will have Generation 2 of the Ultium Battery pack out by 2025. As with Computer Technology, Electric auto's which were ahead of their time in the early 1900's are now able to come into existence with excellent updates and faster change due to our advances in education / technology that allows us to move forward to better ways of transportation. IMHO

You talk about West coast needs --- that is not the middle of the USA where travel distances are great!

You did not address the query about the 100 vehicle pile-up on I95. What if this had been EVs ? People would have died!

Nobody addresses the distance issue except to say --- it will work out.......

HOW, and at what cost ! Hybrids may be a partial answer..

I’m sure there were a few Teslas in that I-95 gridlock. They are common enough.  

17 hours ago, rkmdogs said:

You talk about West coast needs --- that is not the middle of the USA where travel distances are great!

You did not address the query about the 100 vehicle pile-up on I95. What if this had been EVs ? People would have died!

Nobody addresses the distance issue except to say --- it will work out.......

HOW, and at what cost ! Hybrids may be a partial answer..

I find it funny that you wanna find fault and lay blame on a technology. 

But this sort of thing has happened before.  Not just in Virginia.  In Montreal just 4 years ago.

https://globalnews.ca/news/3310806/highway-13-gridlocked-between-highway-20-and-highway-40-stranding-drivers/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/drivers-stranded-on-highway-13-during-2017-snowstorm-to-finally-receive-their-compensation-1.5800349

But why is it that in backwards, French Frog Quebec, our peoples didnt lay blame and suppose an imaginary EV problem, but tried to see what went wrong?

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/political-firestorm-after-drivers-stranded-overnight-on-highway-13-1.3325577

Shytty, biased journalism that offer shytty biased opinions and you have fallen for it...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/04/imagine-virginias-icy-traffic-catastrophe-with-only-electric-vehicles/

To which other journalists respond to and when that happens, the story at hand gets muddied with useless information...

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jan/07/facebook-posts/theres-no-evidence-electric-vehicles-fare-worse-ga/

If you were a big boy using your brain, you wouldnt seek out such stupid, useless writing to feed your obvious anti-EV stance.   

With me risking getting a  warning for making this personal, Im gonna tell you to get a life!

I assume the I-95 issue can be blamed on inadequate road clearing equipment?  Underfunded/understaffed road department?  Winter does happen every year, states need to prepare by having adequate salt trucks, salt/deicing product supplies, snow plows, drivers.. 

4 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

I assume the I-95 issue can be blamed on inadequate road clearing equipment?  Underfunded/understaffed road department?  Winter does happen every year, states need to prepare by having adequate salt trucks, salt/deicing product supplies, snow plows, drivers.. 

I dont remember Montreal's issues, but yeah, it was ALL that that you mentioned!    Montreal's case was first caused by an 18 wheeler jack-knifed and blocking all lanes. Then it snowballed from there.  From a tow truck driver that could have signaled a problem while he drove by the opposite way but did nothing, to a police chief that was on vacation or leaving for vacation or something like that, to Montreal's snow storm watch that handles road clearing not having the equipment out and about to clear the snow as it fell...

It was a mess from all sides and the Government of Quebec was sued and it had to compensate the drivers that were stuck.  

1 minute ago, oldshurst442 said:

I dont remember Montreal's issues, but yeah, it was ALL that that you mentioned!    Montreal's case was first caused by an 18 wheeler jack-knifed and blocking all lanes. Then it snowballed from there.  From a tow truck driver that could have signaled a problem while he drove by the opposite way but did nothing, to a police chief that was on vacation or leaving for vacation or something like that, to Montreal's snow storm watch that handles road clearing not having the equipment out and about to clear the snow as it fell...

It was a mess from all sides and the Government of Quebec was sued and it had to compensate the drivers that were stuck.  

I know some states also in the South don't have adequate snow clearing/deicing etc equipment because such weather events are uncommon....like what happens at least once a year in Atlanta when they get a snowstorm or ice storm.

I can't imaging being stuck that many hours on a freeway during a storm...a whole lot of not good.   Closest I've come personally was back in 2005 when I was in Portland, Or visiting friends and it took me over 7 hours to go 25 miles when I got caught in an ice storm...sheer terror and very slow driving for hours. 

Ive never been in a situation like that.  On a freeway in the middle of nowhere where you cant just abandon your car and walk to shelter to a McDonald's or something, yeah, its scary.  

The Montreal thing, it was in the city so it was scary, but less so as one could walk a few feet and go to a restaurant to eat or stay warm or even walk a mile or two or less and a Motel would pop up...

I read the Montreal article again...

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/political-firestorm-after-drivers-stranded-overnight-on-highway-13-1.3325577

Drivers were unable to advance and some had to abandon their vehicles and leave the highway on foot.

Many others waited in their car for as many as 12 hours -- some ran out of gas, others didn’t have any food.

Many helped each other out by rationing their fuel.

“We're just sitting around with the other truck drivers in their trucks staying warm because our trucks were running out of gas at the same time,” said one truck driver.

Dominic Arsenault gave up in the middle of the night, hours after he ran out of gas.

"I walked back to the 40 and I was hitchhiking. Somebody picked me up and dropped me at home so I was really lucky," said Arsenault.

Once firefighters were called, they checked on every vehicle.

“They went from car to car to make sure that people were okay in their cars,” said Ian Ritchie of the Montreal fire department. “We also dispatched one of our buses that is heated, that has a toilet.”

On 1/7/2022 at 3:24 PM, rkmdogs said:

You did not address the query about the 100 vehicle pile-up on I95. What if this had been EVs ? People would have died!

You never asked about until you made the above post. How can he query about something for which was not aware?

Furthermore, the last part is pure bunk. As Robert already pointed out, I’m pretty there were EVs on that interstate yet no one died. To insinuate that it would have been that way to begin with is pure sensationalism. 

That map David posted is hilarious : a 2,800-mile wide country is represented at 3" wide, and the charging stations are represented at 1/8" wide. 

2 hours ago, surreal1272 said:

Furthermore, the last part is pure bunk. As Robert already pointed out, I’m pretty there were EVs on that interstate yet no one died. To insinuate that it would have been that way to begin with is pure sensationalism. 

Indeed. If anything, it could be slightly more beneficial to be in a newer long-range EV (equipped with a heat pump) in such a situation. I've seen reports of Model 3s going over 70 hours on battery running HVAC in winter temps (approx. 24° F). Obviously, more extreme temperatures are likely to reduce that.

Doing an admittedly quick google search, idling a gas engine is estimated to burn half a gallon of gas per hour. Assuming this is correct, a typical vehicle with, say, a 16 gallon tank could burn through that in as little as 32 hours. Let's say it's closer to a quarter of a gallon, so possibly 64 hours with the same tank size. Larger tank sizes would increase this, but are generally found on less efficient vehicles.

Overall, it's probably a wash.

1 hour ago, balthazar said:

That map David posted is hilarious : a 2,800-mile wide country is represented at 3" wide, and the charging stations are represented at 1/8" wide. 

Outside of Tesla, this is definitely the biggest hurdle to EV ownership. Rural areas currently don't have the infrastructure to support widespread adoption. Just hopping around on the Plugshare app, the Midwest/great plains area is pretty sparse for non-Tesla charging stations. With demand, this will change, but I can see why someone in a state such as South Dakota or Montana wouldn't take the plunge.

On 1/9/2022 at 10:22 PM, Cory Wolfe said:

Indeed. If anything, it could be slightly more beneficial to be in a newer long-range EV (equipped with a heat pump) in such a situation. I've seen reports of Model 3s going over 70 hours on battery running HVAC in winter temps (approx. 24° F). Obviously, more extreme temperatures are likely to reduce that.

Doing an admittedly quick google search, idling a gas engine is estimated to burn half a gallon of gas per hour. Assuming this is correct, a typical vehicle with, say, a 16 gallon tank could burn through that in as little as 32 hours. Let's say it's closer to a quarter of a gallon, so possibly 64 hours with the same tank size. Larger tank sizes would increase this, but are generally found on less efficient vehicles.

Overall, it's probably a wash.

Outside of Tesla, this is definitely the biggest hurdle to EV ownership. Rural areas currently don't have the infrastructure to support widespread adoption. Just hopping around on the Plugshare app, the Midwest/great plains area is pretty sparse for non-Tesla charging stations. With demand, this will change, but I can see why someone in a state such as South Dakota or Montana wouldn't take the plunge.

Give it time, good to see you back.

On 1/9/2022 at 10:22 PM, Cory Wolfe said:

Overall, it's probably a wash.

There is no "probably" here. The worries about EVs in this situation is pure bunk made up by most the fear mongering types looking for any excuse to dump on EVs, even if what they are saying is pure BS.

On 1/9/2022 at 8:31 PM, balthazar said:

That map David posted is hilarious : a 2,800-mile wide country is represented at 3" wide, and the charging stations are represented at 1/8" wide. 

And? What does that have to do with anything?

It speaks to the point of the image; coverage.
Either make a graphic representational, or don't bother.

21 minutes ago, balthazar said:

It speaks to the point of the image; coverage.
Either make a graphic representational, or don't bother.

Oh good grief. It's a damn screenshot Balth. Nothing is stopping you from going to the actual page to look at the actual graphic. Of course, you'd have nothing to nitpick if you actually did that.

On 1/9/2022 at 5:31 PM, balthazar said:

That map David posted is hilarious : a 2,800-mile wide country is represented at 3" wide, and the charging stations are represented at 1/8" wide. 

5 hours ago, balthazar said:

It speaks to the point of the image; coverage.
Either make a graphic representational, or don't bother.

This is normal tech that when you zoom out to see the whole country, you get nothing but dots on top of dots and yet if you go by the link you can zoom in for state by state and even city by city to see the actual details of the charging stations.

Example NJ:

State

Cities

City

Specific charging locations which shows damn good details.

I get it that the EV tech scares people, but let's not flush out common sense on posting a map of the country with an actual working link where anyone can dig into the details. 

I actually try my best, with best intent to provide the links of the data and info I post here unlike some folks that are German or Asian auto fans with what can only be interpreted as sensationalism for the sake of stirring the pot.

I have no problem admitting if I make a mistake and correcting it, but my love of the auto industry, new technology drives me to enjoy what we have coming and the excitement of the new tech.

You made no mistake @David. He knew what he had to do to see that data. That link was right there in front of him. It was just nitpicking bull$h! and borderline trolling, if you ask me but I suppose my pointing it out won’t stop similar nonsense in the future so maybe I’m just wasting my time here. 

I’m not “scared” of electric motors. 😂

Do not confuse fear and preference.

Some areas have pretty decent charger frequency. Not so good yet in my area; roughly half are Tesla’s, a number of others have different restrictions. For example; 1 non-Tesla one listed very close is in the no-public-access police parking lot; makes no sense in even listing it on a site for locating chargers.

22 minutes ago, balthazar said:

I’m not “scared” of electric motors. 😂

Do not confuse fear and preference.

Maybe you would be happier if the map were printed on paper and in black & white?  In a 1950 Rand McNally style?  

So the EV charging station map shows one location 2.3 miles from me (J1772), at a new Meijer store that opened last year.   It also shows another (CHAdeMO, CCS) at a Dunkin Donuts about 5 miles from me-- (curious none at the two Dunkin's that are much closer).   And another J1772 at a McDonalds about 3.5 miles away (not one of the 3 closer McDonalds).    

There is a Tesla supercharger at the Sheraton Inn & Suites across the street from my office.

I have seen charging stations in use at a McDonalds--saw a VW id.4 at one back in the fall.

Nah, I just note it’s depiction as not being indicative of reality. Perhaps it was a limitation of the program written for it.

1 minute ago, balthazar said:

Nah, I just note it’s depiction as not being indicative of reality. Perhaps it was a limitation of the program written for it.

Actually, if you click on the link and search by zip, it works pretty well as far as the maps.