Yeah that is why I think Aptera is kind of interesting they are concentrating on maximizing range through maximizing efficiency and when you pass a certain efficiency threshold integrated solar charging becomes viable. If they make it to production I can see them being successful with people who don’t need a larger car and live in places where they can’t install a dedicated charger in their parking spot.
I have a 30 year old diesel camper van which we use once every few weeks. Being a mechanically injected diesel Toyota so it's pretty reliable, the only thing that lets it down is the battery, especially over the winter when it gets used even less frequently.
The obvious solution to this is a small solar panel to keep the battery topped up.
It had never occurred that I'd have to be very careful to park the van in an area where it has good direct sunlight (it's only a 10w panel so anything less than direct sunlight means it's barely producing enough to support the charge controller). The street in which I usually park is south facing but has tallish buildings on both sides.
The upshot of this is I can can't imagine how frustrating it would be if I was counting on the solar panels on the car contributing to its range.
> Range needs to be a few hundred miles regardless
No way. Who drives that much day to day? A little electric vehicle for commuting / errands doesn't need that kind of range if it can charge fast enough. Sure, some people need more than that, but if you're taking a handful of long trips per year, you can just rent a car with longer range for those purposes.
In the long run, range could be less of an issue if we had electrified roads that allow the cars to charge while moving at freeway speeds.
(This isn't needed for all roads, just the major highways and interstates, since those are the roads where people typically are driving long distance.)
In the last Elon/Rogan podcast, he talked about range and said that at a certain point it really doesnt matter, because most people just end up carrying around the extra range and never using it. That number is probably around 400 miles
That depends on if I can recharge. I have driving ICE cars with 150 mile ranges, and ICE cars with 600 miles ranges - either way I just filled the tank when the gauge got down to about 1/4. This works because fast refueling exists everywhere I can think of. So long as EV chargers are rare (and sometimes broken) I need a lot of extra range to ensure I can refuel before running dry.
Of course with both of the ICE cars above I had a particular station that I mostly refueled at, because I learned who had a good price that wasn't too far out of my way. On the long trips I could just fill anywhere and so I didn't think about where I could fuel while planning a trip. EVs are easy to fill in my personal garage, but if you are going on a long trip you better plan fuel stops in advance.
Superchargers are rarer than gas stations but plentiful enough (in the US) for long trips if you mostly stick to interstates. Non-Tesla networks are also rapidly increasing in number.
Also you cannot refuel your ICE car at home or at your hotel while you sleep. This is a huge benefit to EVs that makes ICE range comparisons hard to quantify in simplistic terms.
The problem is I don't always stick to interstates. Even when I am on an interstate, there is a big difference between being able to stop every 20 miles and every 200 miles. The first means I sometimes refuel because we are at half a tank and someone needs a bathroom, while the later forces me to stop like it or not when I get to a charger.
Refueling at home is nice for when I'm home - 95% of the time. That last 5% is the topic here. Most hotels don't have a charger, and even those that do you can't be sure you can park in that spot.
presumably as more people buy electric cars (teslas), they will have to add more chargers to their network. I just drove from 5K miles down the east coast and back through middle of america in a M3 and i can attest it is very easy to filter out hotels that have chargers, and a lot more hotels have tesla chargers than I thought. I only paid $37 from NYC -> Jacksonville (via PA) because of hotel chargers.
Range, charging speed, and availability of rapid charging points that is close to the availability of gas stations are all essential.