flumberbuss

Yep, THAT is the EV lifestyle. The roadside charging stuff is the exception not the rule. Source: I own an EV and that is my lifestyle.

Not OP, but imagine sex is like a conversation. You talk a lot at work and that uses a certain part of your brain and you are performing in your professional work persona. You may be exhausted from work, but still want to get home and have nice conversation with friends and family. The analogy is by no means perfect, but sex as job performance and sex as loving activity are two different things.

Adoption is going to take another 6-7 years to get to 50% EV sales in the US, but because cars last 15-20 years, in order to get 50% of the entire vehicle fleet EV, it will take until after 2040. And it won’t be until around 2050-2060 that effectively all internal combustion vehicles are replaced. In other words, it’s not happening overnight.

We are extremely lucky that solar power has advanced so far that it is actually cheaper now in many places to add new capacity via solar than via coal or gas power plants. Solar can definitely be scaled in time to meet the extra demand for electricity from EVs. Changes to the grid are going to be hard, but as long as environmental protection laws aren’t (ironically) abused to stop construction, the grid will also be adapted over that 20-30 year time frame.

As for Toyota, it’s a nice story about hybrids, but the reality is that they really wanted the future to be hydrogen and put way more of their development effort into that than EVs. Now they finally realize their mistake and are scrambling to go electric. But they are way behind. Toyota is #1 today. I don’t think it will even be in the top 3 in 2030. The weakness of their position won’t be evident to casual observers until 2025 or later.

As for the comments on Tesla, look at the number of recalls for them vs other manufacturers. Tesla looks pretty good in comparison. The steering wheel thing was observed in what, 2 vehicles? Nissan had a recall a couple days later for the same issue. Don’t kid yourself that Tesla has quality control issues at this point that are worse than average. Model 3, which I drive, is actually a solid vehicle and gets good ratings now. Kinks have been mostly worked out.

Not sure I understand this answer. Now that it is 2023 and not 2013, we are ending the early adopter phase and starting to enter the mainstream. Since Tesla was first and has the best charging network by far, if you want a “safe” choice and not to fumble with companies still trying to figure out their EV approach, Tesla is the safe choice.

Tesla had a lot of growing pains. Other companies are just now experiencing them too. It doesn’t matter if a company built cars for 100 years. The tech and engineering and supply chain change in important ways. Of the legacy car makers, probably Hyundai/Kia has done the best job figuring it out. Ford and VW follow. GM had a head start, but squandered it. Toyota has been fucking up completely.