The inconvenient truth about electric cars

[robertrobertson]

Agreed Alex, those thoughts are valid for a great majority of electric vehicle owners!

[ronnelson]

Good early morning from Connecticut,
19 months and 39, 000 miles of carefree driving in my 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5.
The real inconvenient truth for me is that my car turned into a brick or a bookend (huge heavy paperweight) two weeks ago, and they have no idea what’s wrong with it.
Two technicians working all day for six business days with Hyundai USA tech-support too……nada.
$52, 000 plus and it doesn’t work.
I was lucky enough to have a working Electrify America station halfway between my home and my daily commute. Luckily, I only needed 15 minutes or a half an hour max, once a week. You are right about home charging and how important it is, but by 2025 there will be enough chargers to make it convenient.
It seems like every time I go to play tennis or golf on the weekend, I’m able to find a charger to top up. Now when I go to the mall or the movies, there is a level two charger to top me up. Trader Joe’s, Jersey Mike’s, Old Navy, the massage place all seem to have free level two charging while I shop, many many places to TopUp and parking spots are incredibly good, better than handicap spots.

[fullyelectric]

Alex true is very inconvenience to most if you have to drive out of your way to always get a charge, however I have many friends that lives in apartment building that does not have any chargers, some of them charge at work, and the rest does have EVgo or EA in their local area very close to their apartment and they will rather park their car do some basic shopping then to pump gas or take days off every 3 months to service their ice car, not one of them has had any regrets switching to EV the gain totally outweighs the cons, but yes for people like us that lives in a house and or use to living in a house with a charger outside would not adjust well without a dedicated charger.

[adisurd]

I guess you speak for the USA market.

I own a Model Y and no one in my street can charge at home. We have two Type 2 poles (4 chargers) on our street and a total of 6 EVs / PHEVs on the street. There is another one 4 minutes walk away.

This blanket statement of yours assumes there is no good public charging infrastructure, which is true in USA. In Western Europe, its the opposite in many countries.

My city of 200, 000 residents has about 800 such chargers on the streets. They are concentrated where people cannot charge at home.

[AntonChuffeurLH]

I managed 1, 6 years without a homecharger... and I drive atleast 450 km every day. 28-41 minutes per day at a supercharger... no problems 🙂👍

[pilozm]

This is 100% true for me. Almost all the *public* chargers are inside a PAID parking garage. So i would have tonpay to park and pay for the charging session. So you're correct it is highly inconvenient and far from economical for me. This is inside NYC, which has terrible charging infrastructure.
#sad

[BarryObaminable]

I went to Walmart once a week to get food. Charge up at EA.

Of course not all have them. But there is also usually one on the way home from work.

[vinylcabasse]

have had a 2019 etron for 4 years now, the last 6 months of which have been entirely without L2 charging at home. my husband charges in the garage at work, and we occasionally use the L1 to add 15-20 miles overnight but we feel no pressure to get moving on getting a 240V outlet added to our garage...way too many other projects going on here.

crazily enough we have some neighbors behind with a 2023 etron; they have no garage and they also have no L2 charging at home. from what we found out they tend to go to L3 chargers every couple of weeks to fill up. that's less than ideal probably...

[eddiegill]

People stare at their phones all day. Doing that while charging your car is no big deal

[yhk]

Absolutely agree! it’s also very nice to have free charging when it’s offered at shopping malls and super markets.

[dougabbott]

Agreed home charging is the best but if you are prepared for off site charging, still might be OK. Key point is you have to be aware of what you getting into.

[petertraveller]

First you need a car with reasonable size battery, example 64 kwh usable capacity. My local store has 50 kw charger, 17c/kwh, I charge there when buying food, I can manage 7 to 10 days with one full charge, of course usually only charging to 80% or less. So can live without home charging in europe.

[LennyLam]

I've had my car for a little over 5 years in Queens, NY. At first it was difficult. I had to drive 6 miles to JFK to charge and they only had 4 stalls at the time. A year after they opened one up 2 miles by me and then a year later another one opened up .5 mile from me. So yes. It was difficult at first. But to say it's not for us, is a pretty blanket statement.

[kevinweber]

I agree with you. Maybe if you live in Europe where gas is much more expensive than the US then you are willing to tolerate more inconvenience for the saving.

[mockingbird]

Very informative video, Alex... I never knew that "Russia" backwards spells the way JFK would likely pronounce "Asia."

[leguminous]

I think that depends on where you live, if your favorite grocery store, mall or restaurants have DC plugs living without one at an apartment should be "fine" - coming from someone with L2 in my personal garage.

[Mark.Richter]

Totally agreed. Though i did stay at an airbnb and their hoa had free chargers. Think more people need to ask for it.

[treborheminway]

There are plenty of convenient Tesla chargers at stores around me. Given I don't drive much, it would still work just fine, but if you don't have that, then you have a point.

[jiminauburn]

100%. Not for everyone. If you can charge at home, it is great. Or if you are like my work and you have 10 level 2 chargers for employees to charge on for free. I hate it now that we are mostly work from home. I have to specifically go into the office a couple of times a month to charge the car up.

[russh]

Some employers provide free charging at work as a perk. I know people that bought them and never plugged in at home. Of course the pandemic changed that