[lambdasquirrel]

I don't blame you. I think there's a couple of deeper issues at stake.

- Distances that people need to travel are farther in North America. Just like how the smaller cars that sell in Europe and Asia wouldn't sell here, the smaller EVs made for Europe and Asia wouldn't sell here either.

- A more reliable and comprehensive charging network needs to be in place. This is exacerbated by the previous point. In addition to that, my anecdotal experience is that many EV chargers are damaged either by misuse or intentional sabotage.

- Liquid electrolytes are heavy, and the current technology uses too much expensive battery for the distance offered, which matters because in NA, distances are long.

I think that this is unfortunately why Asia is in a virtuous loop with regards to EV adoption, and are slated to enjoy the lower TCO, whereas in North America, we're looking at higher costs for an indefinite period of time. Europe, they were ahead for too long and I guess the present-day conservatism towards technology is having consequences now.

[kmeisthax]

Americans want smaller cars, they just can't buy them for a host of very stupid and self-defeating reasons. CAFE fuel economy rules are extremely strict, but trucks are exempted from it because who would buy a more expensive work vehicle just to drive around and pollute more? So of course the automakers figured out how to market more expensive work vehicles as a means to drive and pollute more.

As a result, a significant portion of American road traffic is people driving "sport utility vehicles", Ford F-150s, and Escalades to haul their 2.5 children around town. These very large vehicles create problems for everyone else; they are not "crash compatible" and will cause way more damage to smaller cars than smaller cars would do to each other. This means that small cars have to be overbuilt to survive high-speed crashes with cars that shouldn't even be on the road. This can't always be done, especially not without compromising fuel efficiency[0], so entire categories of small cars (e.g. subcompacts, kei trucks, etc) are just plain illegal to sell here.

Of course, the way automakers sold people on more expensive cars that burn more fuel is through culture war shenanigans, and that has trickled down into American car culture. Hence why you get chuds vandalizing Electrify America chargers. Tesla chargers have their own brand of vandalism, where people would park their gas cars in front of Tesla chargers deliberately just to inconvenience people who bought EVs. The reason why a Tesla charger is more likely to be functional is primarily a function of investment on the part of Tesla versus legacy automakers, the latter of whom are investing in EVs very reluctantly because Elon's Musk embarrassed them so much.

Battery weight is a problem for long road trips, which Americans are far more likely to take. However, Americans are also far more likely to buy multiple cars. Most EVs are actually really good second / "city" cars even in America, because you can charge them at home.

[0] The primary way you improve fuel efficiency is by cutting weight. Improving crash survivability increases weight.

[closeparen]

EVs should be understood in the context of home charging. Just how many people are commuting more than 150 miles (Leaf), 250 miles (Bolt), or 330 miles (Model 3) every day? They’d be putting 35-70k miles on their vehicle each year. That’s an entire lease, sometimes an entire vehicle lifetime. That’s not typical.

I think there’s a good argument that you still want one ICE car in the household for the annual national park trip or drive 15 hours to grandma’s house or whatever, but for the others electric is very compelling.