"The fixation on mileage may be misplaced, however, given Americans don't actually tend to go all that far when they get behind the wheel"
When you have a family with kids, you travel way more than 3 miles on average. This combined with the poor infrastructure makes it a hard 'no' from me at the moment.
What's not mentioned here is the weather and many other factors determine how many miles you can go on one charge, and it can dramatically decrease it.
We should have focused on hybrid. This would have given consumers a reason to buy it (extends gas mileage), infrastructure is still supported, and it would have given us time for acceptance and to build out the infrastructure.
Now, the automotive companies lost billions of dollars, and will most likely drop EVs completely within the next 10 years.
This should be a lesson in attempting to push radical change without anything to really support it. I've seen this at a smaller level with companies and it ends up in failure every time.
Much of your comment is weirdly incorrect. The use of 3 miles as a travel metric for example. Polestar has just introduced an EV with 400 miles range. And that's just one of many more coming on to the market. EV sales are exploding in China, with Scandinavia, Europe and other regions not far behind. The legacy auto makers failure to understand EV momentum reflects their inability to cope with the upheaval that's about to happen. It's a Kodak moment all over again.
Polestar has just introduced an EV with 400 miles range UNDER OPTIMUM CONDITIONS. i.e. warm enough weather, overnight 'warm' parking, plenty of charging stations, no other cars at the charging station to allow a charge big enough in a short enough time. (It's the old 'How many appliances can you plug into a single outlet?' problem. The more appliances plugged in, the less energy is available for each of them.)
That Polestar will have the same problems that Tesla drivers had this winter: The LACK OF EV-SUPPORTING INFRASTRUCTURE
It's the old chicken and egg problem: Can we afford to spend billions on infrastructure before we have millions of EVs? On the other hand, without that infrastructure nobody will buy millions of EVS because they're not usable.
The biggest infrastructure problem, even bigger than the lack of charging stations, is the lack of an electrical grid robust enough to be charging millions of EVs at any time of day or night. Last year the Texas electrical grid was not robust enough to be able to cater for several weeks of cold temperatures, even without having to charge millions of EVs.
EV sales are exploding in China
China has a history of providing infrastructure beforehand.(High-speed rail, anyone?) You would probably discover that there are lots more and better charging stations there. Europe also. I can remember seeing charging points in ordinary parking spaces on Paris streets about 12 years ago.
Yes, I guess the problem is the US is rapidly falling behind the rest of the world in terms of EV adoption and infrastructure. In the UK and Europe it's perfectly feasible to charge at home, and keep the car running happily for more than a week or two with general local or even commuter motoring. And there are over 56,000 public chargers available to use in the UK alone. Including ones embedded in street lamp posts in big cities.
The other thing folks don't often mention is just how easy it is to maintain an EV. It doesn't need oil changes, brake pads, complicated engine tuning or servicing. It's so much simpler to own. Which is probably one of the reasons the legacy automakers are having a problem - once EVs are everywhere, bang goes the massive aftermarket and servicing requirement. The only major thing to keep spending money on is tyres.
When you have a family with kids, you travel way more than 3 miles on average. This combined with the poor infrastructure makes it a hard 'no' from me at the moment.
What's not mentioned here is the weather and many other factors determine how many miles you can go on one charge, and it can dramatically decrease it.
We should have focused on hybrid. This would have given consumers a reason to buy it (extends gas mileage), infrastructure is still supported, and it would have given us time for acceptance and to build out the infrastructure.
Now, the automotive companies lost billions of dollars, and will most likely drop EVs completely within the next 10 years.
This should be a lesson in attempting to push radical change without anything to really support it. I've seen this at a smaller level with companies and it ends up in failure every time.