[at_a_remove]

I think that you can take all of the differentiators that exist for ICE vehicles (price, reliability, status ...) and then add in some new factors:

1) Range anxiety

2) Recharge concerns (plays into range anxiety)

3) Novel technology fears (will my trusted mechanic of twenty years be able to handle this or am I stuck with the dealership?)

4) "Handling" -- will this drive like my old ICE car? Apparently a major irritation factor from some EV adopters I know, who disliked how out of control they felt.

5) Technology settling ... my guess is that the standard voltage systems within these vehicles will eventually settle on a standard between these vehicles, because people will be interested in the "pluggability" of EV options if they are that much simpler. Can I just plug in my dashcam, or do I need a voltage converter? I'm driving over to my friend's place, can I use his charger?

I'm probably missing a few.

[neogodless]

#2 (and #1) is really important, even if it shouldn't be. When you buy a car, you're plunking down $40,000 (apparently[0]!) and trying to cover every use case you're going to have over the next 5 years. So that trip you make to the beach once each summer, or visiting grandma on her half-mile dirt lane, or the one time you get caught at work when it's snowing too heavily for the plows to keep up... you need 350 mile range, AWD, all-season tires, 6 seats, massive luggage space, perfect map/navigation integration with your phone...

Given my other comment about the massive variety of cars (not just EVs) that people want to buy, people want choice, and right now you do not get great choices when it comes to charging station networks. I believe that mass adoption will not happen until interchangeable charging stations are ubiquitous, even if more than half of car owners could get by on charging overnight at home 363 days a year.

[0] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/average-new-car-price-202...

[pasttense01]

Mostly true for one car households, but with multiple car households you only need to be sure that one of the cars will cover a rare use case.

[lowbloodsugar]

Re: #3 - handle what? Changing the oil? Replacing the clutch. Dealing with the camshaft gears shredding and destroying engine? Fixing any part of the gear box? Of the automatic gearbox? My belt tensioner isn't. The clutch on my ac is broken. My powersteering hydraulic line came loose and sprayed all over the road. My power steering pump needs replacing (a month after the fluid got dumped). Piston ring blown. Cylinder head gasket needs replacing.

So looking forward not to have to take the car to any kind of mechanic at all except for brakes and wiper fluid. Sure, anything else probably means swapping something out, but if you've ever had your gasoline engine out of your car, you'll know swapping out an electric motor is trivial by comparison.

[elihu]

EVs can potentially be very low maintenance, but they're still machines with parts that will wear out or break eventually if driven far enough: bearings, cv joints, suspension components, electric power steering units, etc... Plus all the little accessories that aren't part of the drivetrain or steering/suspension/brakes but might cause problems if they break, like motorized door handles or flash memory chips that have been written to too many times, or whatever.

Being able to get access to the parts and information necessary to fix things can make a lot of difference when things fail and the warrantee is expired. This is basically the "right to repair" issue. Some people care about it a lot and some people don't.

[imtringued]

Other than oil dripping on to the parking lot I haven't had any ICE related problems. Sure the car needs a yearly inspection and oil changes but the costs have been minimal. I've spent more on window repairs, brake pad & discs, tires and broken power steer than on ICE related maintenance.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> So looking forward not to have to take the car to any kind of mechanic at all except for brakes and wiper fluid.

You won't even need to go to a mechanic for brakes.

Regen breaking means your brake pads are rarely actually used and will probably last a million miles.

AFAIK, the only maintenance item you'll likely be taking an EV to is tires.

[monkmartinez]

This just isn't factual. Every part of car will eventually wear out. Go spend some time on the Tesla forums and you'll see they are not even close to maintenance free.

[Sohcahtoa82]

Are you using "maintenance" in this context to refer to repairing parts that might wear out or break, such as perhaps a suspension component, or a door handle breaking?

Because I'm only considering "regular" maintenance that most people do every X miles or Y years. For a Tesla, the only "regular" maintenance is cabin filters, tire-related maintenance, brake fluid, an A/C. The 12V battery also needs replacement periodically.

I strictly use the word "maintenance" to refer to preventative care and replacement of consumables such as tires, filters, and washer fluid. Repairs of failed parts are something else.

[nikau]

What's the point of compartmentalizing it other than to push a misleading "EVs are cheaper" narrative?

If it costs money its adds to the total cost of ownership, whether its preventative maintenance or unscheduled break fix.

The only difference with preventative is its scheduled so you can organize the work to fit your schedule without much inconvenience.

At the end of the day you need to factor in the entire cost of the car over its lifespan and figure out at what distance the cost of ownership crosses over from ICE being cheaper to EV being cheaper.

This includes repairs, fuel/electricity, insurance, opportunity cost of not having the price difference to invest, etc.

[lowbloodsugar]

"Analysis of real-world maintenance and repair cost data from thousands of CR members shows that BEV and PHEV owners are paying half as much as ICE owners are paying to repair and maintain their vehicles."

- Consumer Reports [1]

[1] https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2020...

[Ekaros]

I would actually be worried about brakes not getting used instead of them getting used and worn out. Having replaced my KIA's breaks due to dragging. After all they are hydraulic system with moving parts that can get stuck if not used enough.

[nikau]

Ironically Teslas have issues with binding brakes due to lack of use.

[nikau]

I hope you didn't get a Tesla as they specify an AC service every two years

[ajford]

I totally agree with 1 & 2 as being major differentiators in any EV discussion.

I owned a Nissan Leaf gen1 and it was painful. It was about 2.5yo when I purchased it, and it claimed nearly 50mi range according to the range estimator (famously called the guesstimator in leaf community). Within about 6 months it fell to barely 40mi range on a good day. My wife hated to drive it due to range anxiety, and more than once I ended up sitting outside a restaurant using either 120v and a beefy extension cord or when lucky a hotel using their complementary Level 2 charger.

That feeling has completely flipped with our Chevy Volt. We usually last weeks or more on a tank of gasoline, thanks to much more reliable 50mi range of the Volt. Compared to the Nissan Leaf gen1, my Gen2 Volt has a highly accurate range meter. And if I'm at risk of depleting my electric range, I can still drive on gas until I can charge up, with no risk/concern for the EV systems.

I wish 5 was less of a concern than it currently is. While I applaud Tesla for it's initiative concerning wide availability of a charging infrastructure, I wish they wouldn't have created an incompatible charging infrastructure.

For the most part, the North American EV industry has a rather cross-compatible charging port, the SAE J1772. I believe this is equally common in Europe, but I haven't kept up with that. Functionally, the Tesla charger operates very similarly, except they use an auth handshake to enable charging for Tesla vehicles. This means that while Tesla vehicles can take advantage of non-Tesla infrastructure, it's harder for those with non-Tesla vehicles to make use of Tesla infrastructure, though I can understand why they made that choice as a company.

I think the best result we could hope for would be a solid and standardized federal infrastructure with some kind of point-of-use charging system. Ideally, something like a gas station for charging, where you can pay at the pump without need for registration or signup. I've tried once or twice to 'pay at the pump' with these privately owned charging kiosks and each time was unable to get to the point of charging due to network issues and/or being unable to register, which does not help with range anxiety in any way.

[jdofaz]

Europe has a consistent plug but it is different than what is typical in NA (CCS type 1 vs type 2)

[rsj_hn]

Repairability and maintainability is the big one for me. I don't mind buying a disposable car, but then that disposable car better last 10 years (or 150K miles) and cost 15K.

If they are selling cars for 40K, then those cars need to be cheap to maintain and service, so they can stay on the road for 30 years with say, 5K parts costs over those 30 years. Or stay on the road for 40 years with 20K parts costs, etc. There are many Toyotas and Hondas as well as good trucks that last forever -- basically with a lifetime limited by body rust. If you have a 2000 Celica, even if you aren't a mechanic, a brand new retail OEM AC compressor is $700 and you can get it replaced for $100 in labor. Strut replacement will cost you $400 retail parts with maybe $250 labor. 2000 Toyota Celicas drive great, you can pick one up for 2-3K, and maintain it for $500/year, it'll last another 10 years. 20mpg city, 30 mpg highway, handles well, with nice styling. When I start seeing numbers like that for 20 year old Teslas or Leafs, I'll know they are seriously addressing the mass market of ordinary car buyers, as it is the experience of users on the tail end of a car's life that determines the depreciation paid by those who buy the car new - which is the single largest cost of ownership for new car buyers - and so long term repair costs determine the overall value provided by the car for everyone who owns it across its lifecycle, even if they are only rotating through a series of three year leases.

[kwhitefoot]

Range anxiety regarding electric vehicles seems to be something that mostly afflicts those who do not have an EV.

I have a 2015 Model S 70D with a range of about 330 km. In the three years and 70 thousand km that I have been driving it I have had only three occasions when I was anxious about the range. Most new EVs have better range than that so most buyers of new EVs from now on should have even less reason to be concerned. And of course most EVs are bought by people who can charge them at home which means that the car is almost always fully 'fuelled' when you need it. It won't be long before 500 km is a normal range for EVs which is comparable to a lot of petrol cars in the US: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-939-august-22-2016... (2016). The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is almost there.

[User23]

This might be a Europe vs America thing. In Europe you can drive for an hour and be in another country. In the USA you can drive for an hour and be in the suburbs of the city you just left.

[jjtheblunt]

> Range anxiety...

it also affects early buyers who knew it, like our 2014 BMW i3's range, original small battery, is around 70 miles.

I imagine range anxiety is a function of total battery capacity, to your point somewhat. But my 70 miles (or so) range means i have to be very aware where i can recharge.

[kwhitefoot]

Yes, in your case you do have to be careful and very range aware.

But those who make the most noise about range always seem to be those who do not have an EV. And also there do not seem to be many accounts of people going back to ICE cars.

[jjtheblunt]

i totally agree.

[2rsf]

my vacation house is 200 km away and have barely enough electricity to support itself, many other Swedes drive further away and have less electricity available.

I agree that for routine day-to-day driving, visiting friends running errands or even shorter trips, electrical is the way to go but it really depends on you situation.

[kwhitefoot]

> my vacation house is 200 km away and have barely enough electricity to support itself,

At least in Norway that is already practical over most of the country with an electric car, especially a Tesla because there are so many chargers.

I have driven from south of Oslo to two hours north of Trondheim and back at least half a dozen times in my Tesla S 70D. without trouble.

It looks like Tesla in Sweden haven't invested in quite so many chargers yet but even there they are typically less than 150 km apart even in the north and of course there are more public chargers being built all the time.

I agree that most other brands of car have had rather shorter range but they are catching up rapidly.

[2rsf]

How does it work practically? you stop for a long lunch and hope for a free charger?

[kwhitefoot]

I have only ever had to wait at the busiest chargers and they are all in high population density areas, not in the mountains. Even then I have never waited more than 20 minutes.

I have driven and charged my car at Tesla stations in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and the UK and I think there are only two Tesla chargers that I have had to wait at: Lier South and Lier North, both just north east of Drammen on the E18 on the way to and from Oslo respectively.

The situation is not so rosy if you can't use a Tesla but this is only a problem for me when I visit the UK because of the very uneven distribution of Tesla chargers. However number of chargers, both Tesla and others, is growing rapidly almost everywhere in Europe so the problem is getting less acute.