[Kadin]

> A good EV or a good gasoline car are both better than a hybrid, so what is the point?

I don't think this is true. A plug-in hybrid will always have an advantage over a gasoline car, in that it can do short trips without starting the gas engine at all. So for repeated short trips, it acts like a BEV. But unlike a BEV, there's no range limitation or worrying about where to find a charging station.

I've thought fairly hard about a pure BEV and I can't see myself getting one except as an additional vehicle. But I could see getting a plug-in hybrid like the Volt in the near future. Anecdotally, all the people I know who are seriously considering BEVs are buying them as second or third cars. There's certainly a market, but I think it's going to saturate pretty quickly, because a lot of people don't want to have one vehicle for known-distance commuting and then another vehicle for unknown-distance or long trips. While these trips may represent a small percentage of driving in terms of actual mileage, they're enough to shape the choice of cars. (E.g. someone may not drive to grandma's house out in the sticks more than a few times a year, but if the car can't handle that drive, it's not going to get purchased, period.)

[mikeash]

Lots of Tesla owners have it as their only car. (Or they own multiple cars, but all EVs.) I'm one of them. Of course, Tesla is the only one out there that can really handle those long trips. The Bolt can't unless all the stars line up.

I really don't understand why other manufacturers aren't pushing hard on fast charging networks. As you say, those long trips may not be common, but people won't buy the car if it can't make them.