[anexprogrammer]

Quite so. The Honda Accord, or Ford Focus family car that takes the kids to school, a 30 mile daily commute and a few trips to the shops is the low hanging fruit. They're easy to replace.

If you need something to haul a big caravan for holiday, or trailer for a move. Just rent - the rental shops will expand to fit nicely. Probably a nice big diesel.

The v8 offroader that actually works offroad, the truck, and shipping are on diesel for the forseeable.

I don't even see the space requirements to cater for EVs charging needs as much of an issue. We already have service areas on motorways in Europe. Huge spaces with a petrol station in the far corner. We'll have to adjust to 500 mile journeys including a couple of rest/coffee breaks. If you have young kids they already do. Only difference is plug the car in before going inside.

We might have to resurrect a few diners (with charging) along the way on rural or non motorway roads. I think I like that.

[Roboprog]

Anecdata: I (almost) bought a used Nissan Leaf (~ $10K) a while back. For taking my daughter to work (about 20 miles round trip), it was great. Just put it back on the charger, which was only a 15 amp 110 V charger, and it was ready to go again in a few hours. (edit: it still had 2/3 the battery left, but was fully recharged in just a few hours)

Unfortunately, my commute is a bit further (almost 50 miles), which left almost nothing in the slightly aged battery, and caused a "non linear" increase in charge time (without getting a 220 V upgrade charger)

The car (Leaf) was plenty peppy, but the range dropped considerably when going 65 to 70 MPH on the freeway, vs 30 to 50 MPH through town. The maintenance schedule was something like "check the break system every 6 months; get new tires every 3 years; replace the battery every 8 years" (or something along that line).

Still, if you have a short commute, or, as a "mom-mobile", getting a used EV is a no brainer (especially if you have cheap electricity like under Sac's SMUD utility). Just rent the vacation car twice a year. When we fly, that's what we do, anyway.

[mr337]

Good choice, I have a leaf and 50 miles round trip at with a good chunk of highway speeds is doable with a new battery. Once it gets a little age you'll be white knuckling it, especially when it comes to winter (depends how cold).

If you had a 220 at your destination then its a no brainer. My parents and in laws are 47 and 42 miles apart respectively. I installed 220v outlets so I can bring my charger with me.

[VLM]

"Probably a nice big diesel."

There's an interesting synergy with other technologies. For example, its pretty trivial to prove you'd have to cover the surface of the earth with a ridiculous number of sunflowers to grow enough oil to power the world with biodiesel using existing vehicles.

However, if 99.9% of car miles driven were solar electric, if not more, then its quite realistic to power every rental truck in the world off biodiesel.

My lifetime driving so far is around 200K miles, and I've driven the home depot truck, enterprise rent a car, and u-haul trucks a total of perhaps 200 miles, so a thousandth of miles driven being biodiesel powered doesn't sound terribly unrealistic on average.