[Reason077]

Turning that around, the requirement to have to stop or make a special trip to fill up with gas every time they get empty is a disincentive to purchase combustion vehicles.

Considering that the vast majority of trips are within the 200-300 mile range of a modern electric vehicle, the fact that it's already "full" and ready to go every morning can be seen as a major advantage.

[mmt]

> the requirement to have to stop or make a special trip to fill up with gas every time they get empty is a disincentive to purchase combustion vehicles

Not really, since this is a requirement of electric vehicles, too.

> the fact that it's already "full" and ready to go every morning can be seen as a major advantage.

That's not a fact but a speculation. It requires infrastructure at every vehicle owner's home (including adjacent, dedicated parking for every such vehicle!) that does not yet exist, for this to be true. (Substitute/add "workplace" for "home" may be slightly more likely but not for any specific vehicle).

A combustion vehicle owner could have similar infrastructure installed for liquid fuel, or hire a service to top vehicles off at night. It's too expensive, so "nobody" does it.

Is there even data that shows what proportion of commuters actually park in their garage, carport, or somewhere similarly electricity-adjacent?]

[Reason077]

The point is that most EV owners typically charge at home, or in some cases work, rather than take time out of their day to refuel (not to mention money out of their wallets!)

It's easy and inexpensive to install EV chargers at any home with a garage or parking space where electrical wiring can be installed. (In fact you don't even need to install a dedicated charger: you can charge an EV from any electrical outlet, if you don't mind slower charging speeds)

The vast majority of "typical suburban commuters" fit into that category, and they are the majority of car owners in North America and Europe.

OK, it's more of a challenge if you're an apartment dweller or live in a dense urban environment with only on-street parking.

But these are being solved, too: cities are installing kerbside chargers (including the ones built into lamp-posts that take advantage of existing wiring), and building regulations require new housing developments to include EV charging. Worst case, you can always make a trip to a nearby fast charger, but of course it's most convenient if you can charge at the location where you normally park anyway.

Dense cities like London and Amsterdam have exactly these issues, and it hasn't stopped an ever-increasing number of people from buying EVs.

[mmt]

> The point is that most EV owners typically charge at home

Maybe today. Those are the early adopters. You're still speculating about a future that doesn't exist yet.

> It's easy and inexpensive to install EV chargers at any home with a garage or parking space where electrical wiring can be installed.

Are you a brochure for an EV/charger? :) The "where electrical wiring can be installed" implies installing electrical wiring, which is neither easy nor inexpensive (not in the US, as it will, for most people, involve an electrician and always, AFAIK, require permitting/inspection).

> if you don't mind slower charging speeds

It's not a question of minding but of whether it gets the job done of obviating the need for the separate fillup. If a Leaf needs 17 kWh for 50 miles, it would need 13 hours drawing 12A (max continuous for a 15A circuit) at 110V, which is doable but not exactly a long commute. 70 miles? Nope.

> The vast majority of "typical suburban commuters" fit into that category, and they are the majority of car owners in North America and Europe.

Which category, exactly, though? The one where they live in a neighborhood that merely has garages and carports? Or the one where they actually park every single car in a garage or carport space? (I live in a suburb, and the streets and driveways are pretty full at night.) Also, a majority of a majority can easily be a minority.

I still think you're speculating, and maybe wishfully thinking, without firm numbers.

> Worst case, you can always make a trip to a nearby fast charger

And again you return to the situation where an EV is no different than an ICE vehicle going to a fueling station.

> hasn't stopped an ever-increasing number of people from buying EVs

Without looking at (and showing us here) the actual numbers, from at least the whole of North American and Europe, "ever-increasing" is meaningless, especially when used in support of your original thesis that ground trasport will be largely electrified in the coming years (vanishingly unlikely) and decades (far more likely since you never specified how many).

Global car production, excluding China, is on the order of 70 million. I don't think non-hybrid EVs are even 1% of that, and the production growth has been closer to linear than geometric.

Even if 50% of new cars this year were EVs, I can't imagine that even in 10 years half the cars out there would be EVs. Assuming the current trend, though, for the Western world, it could be another 20 years before that 50% production mark, which means over 30 years before half the cars are electric. There's my speculation.

[Reason077]

It's not speculation: there are already markets (Norway) where close to 50% of all new cars sold are EVs.

Other countries (China, Netherlands, France, UK) will follow as governments set mandates for electrification.

The US is likely be some years behind Europe and China on uptake for various reasons - there's not quite the same environmental imperative (air pollution) driving government policy, there's less tax on fossil fuels, and geography/demographics are not quite as favourable due to longer commutes and longer distances between cities.

But I do think we'll see significant electrification in many markets during the 2020s, with double-digit market share globally for BEVs by 2030 and >50% share in some markets (China, parts of Europe).

(btw: You do not need a garage or carport for EV charging. Chargers can be, and very often are in my experience, installed outdoors.)

[mmt]

> It's not speculation: there are already markets (Norway) where close to 50% of all new cars sold are EVs.

The latter fails to support the former. A country whose entire population is less than the size of a large city can't be extrapolated, especially since so many other conditions (e.g. economic ones) don't hold.

> as governments set mandates for electrification.

This reads as future tense, so a speculation (upon which you're basing your speculation).

> But I do think we'll see significant electrification in many markets during the 2020s, with double-digit market share globally for BEVs by 2030

"Significant" electrification is still a far cry from your speculation of "largely electrified" ground transportation. 10% is enough for "double-digit", and that still corresponds to getting to 50% around the 50 year mark (assuming "market share" means cars on the road, not just new production).

> and >50% share in some markets (China, parts of Europe).

You really need to exclude China, or at least consider it completely separately, considering how the market is skewed in favor of centralized decision making versus consumer choices and freedoms. It may be interesting for any discussion of emissions, environment, availability of technology, EV competition on the global market, or anything like that, but not for consumer adoption elsewhere.

> (btw: You do not need a garage or carport for EV charging. Chargers can be, and very often are in my experience, installed outdoors.)

Again, "very often" fails to provide any actual numbers. Did you cleverly omit the qualifier "residential" from the above, just to make it true? Were they installed by (i.e. at the individual behest of) the residents themselves, without non-scalable subsidies/support? A government pilot program to spur the 1% early adopters by making it convenient to charge at home can have a politically bad smell if scaled to 10x.

As I said, in my experience, the vast majority of cars in my neighborhood are actually parked where installing a dedicated circuit (let alone a fast charger) is currently impractical, if not impossible. You can continue to speculate all you want about regulations changing or cities installing chargers in the middle of sidewalks, but, today, it's still fantasy.

Bottom line, today, BEVs are 1%, and ICE isn't going away, in large part, any time soon. Consumers who wish to make decisions based on emissions impact would do well not to just to buy into the marketing and wishful thinking of EV proponents and discount the impact of choosing driving (when there is a choice). Fortunately, the impact difference is also typically closely reflected in the price difference, at least for low-margin, high-competition markets (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17578591).