I know a guy who lives in a town 70 miles away from the city where all the large stores are. And 110 miles from the nearest major city with an airport.
There is one gas station in his town, the gas is way overpriced so everyone fills up during their weekly shopping trip and then drives back home. That puts a constraint on them. It's 70 miles home. Then a week later another 70 miles to get to the cheap gas station in the city. So 140 miles out of 300-350 on a tank of gas. Thus the local gas station is sort of immaterial to them since they don't use it if they can help it.
I asked him if he could deal with an electric car with 150 miles of range and he said, oh god yes. He knows that he's spending $300/month just to drive to go shopping. And with an electric he can start his shopping trip with a full charge. Come back and plug the car in and have full range again the next day.
> I live in a city, I have no garage, an EV is impractical for me.
Here's my heuristic. What are the places your car usually spends parked at, and do these places have at least a power outlet you can plug into(a proper charging stations is better of course)? For most city-dwellers, that's either their home, their workplace, or any other place they spend some time on (supermarkets?). Do any of these places, or places nearby, provide a way for you to charge? If yes, you should be fine.
Failing that, it starts to become less practical, as you'll have to rely on quick-charging (if it is even available).
Honestly, this isn't much of a concern medium term. Yes, it's problem now. But, as the EV fleet increases, so will the market pressures for a proper charging infrastructure. It costs much less than creating a gas infrastructure. Most places have electricity, they may require some upgrades, but that's relatively cheap (compare that to adding more gas stations).
Walking to friends that own EV's one metric really is how many days can you go between charges. And the ratio of miles driven vs charging opportunities.
And old lady that drives 1500 miles a year to go shopping might well find all of her charging needs are satisfied by plugging the car in while shopping Petco and Walmart. Because at that rate she only needs the car plugged in for an hour a week.
1500miles/52weeks -> 30 miles/week / 30 miles range per charging hour -> 1hr/week.
What city do you live in where EVs are impractical?
Even the small cities where I live are starting to make ICE vehicles feel a bit less convenient. Right now it's barely noticeable, but you can certainly see where it's headed.
Just as an example, things like going to the city for groceries, pulling into a parking space, and realizing that it is for EVs only. That was last year. This year, at the good grocery store anyway, a second bank of spaces were made EV only.
Point is, I can kind of see where this is all going. So if even small cities here in bass ackwards Wisconsin are doing this kind of thing, I'd have thought it would be rampant in the large cities?
If you own a car in NYC, you have a toy, not a necessary transportation device. I would think NYC would be a step ahead of everyone else in this regard. ie - I would think they would be actively discouraging use of motor vehicles at all. Especially ICE vehicles.
I think of NYC as being more like Paris in that regard than Houston or Minneapolis. If you want to own any car in the future, I think living in NYC is not the place for you. I really do believe they are out to reduce the number of cars in NYC. (Or more precisely, I believe they are out to reduce the number of personally owned vehicles.) So it's not surprising to me that you don't see this sort of infrastructure in NYC.
This isn't necessarily the case in NYC the further out you go, and really many of the older parts of the north east. Tons of streetcar suburbs only really have street parking.
Barely. Modern parking meters, there's one per side of the street, folks walk up and down to retrieve receipts. That model isn't going to work with power cables.
And parking meters don't even exist in most of Brooklyn and Queens (or even a huge amount of Manhattan). That's a massive amount of infrastructure.
(Don't interpret this as an anti-electric-car argument, I just personally think it's better and maybe more likely that personally-owned-cars in general are what fade from NYC)
It is expected that some places are better positioned for an EV switch than others. That's ok.
One thing of note: dense cities like NYC are less amenable to cars in general. And at the same time, driving distances tend to be less, and there is congestion, all of which benefit EVs(engine is not turning if you are not moving, draw from other systems is negligible). If you don't drive as much as someone commuting in the bay area, then you might be able to get away with topping off whenever you go to a mall or something like that. Chargers are appearing at public parking buildings too. Also do you park you car in the street at your workplace? If they have their own parking, that could also eventually be a charging location (as it is in many workplaces elsewhere).
As we speak, my car is charging at my employer's parking garage (it's actually shared between several buildings, but you get the picture). By the time I end my shift I'll just disconnect and go home. I haven't charged at home in more than one year(although I have the ability). In fact, Chargepoint tells me it's already charged.
This means that I don't have to take time off my schedule to go to a gas station, all because of my employer. Given the proximity, I only have to charge once a week or less.
If you also have to park in the street at your workplace, then it won't be as convenient. But then again, I think finding a parking spot should already be stressful enough as it is :)
Hold on for a while. Cities will adapt, they will have no choice.
Many towns and cities in Europe are installing electric car charging points to on-street parking.
It's certainly not enough to rely on to charge a personal car, but it's increasing. I usually see the pay-per-minute rental cars parked in the spaces.
It might help that 220-240V is the standard voltage, it's a bit more worthwhile than 115V would be, but for more than a couple of points the existing wiring (streetlights etc) probably needs to be upgraded anyway.
There is one gas station in his town, the gas is way overpriced so everyone fills up during their weekly shopping trip and then drives back home. That puts a constraint on them. It's 70 miles home. Then a week later another 70 miles to get to the cheap gas station in the city. So 140 miles out of 300-350 on a tank of gas. Thus the local gas station is sort of immaterial to them since they don't use it if they can help it.
I asked him if he could deal with an electric car with 150 miles of range and he said, oh god yes. He knows that he's spending $300/month just to drive to go shopping. And with an electric he can start his shopping trip with a full charge. Come back and plug the car in and have full range again the next day.