[Yizahi]

As a European, US will probably overtake Europe on EVs soon and fast. You have two unique differences to many other countries - a lot of population lives in private houses or condos, where they can just plug in EV in a regular socket without much changes. And US has a sprawling net of private solar installations which will stimulate EVs even more as soon as people will wake up to bills they incur. And lastly US has a proper non-broken and user friendly net of charging stations, courtesy of one rocketman.

Europe on the other hand had a big headstart and squandered it (and no, Norway doesn't count, Norway's experience can't and won't be transferred to other countries). I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion. Almost no charging spots in any of them, or maybe 1-2 spots per 200 apartment building AND they are priced even higher than high cost basic concrete parking place. Public charging stations are very limited in numbers, often closed or out of service. Interop is crap, I've used a corporate EV Astra while on a business trip and the card didn't work anywhere outside of the office parking lot, which by the way is a parking for a 5 storied business center occupied by IT companies and it has exactly 1 (one) moderately crappy charging pole with 1 (one) port. I had to drive to a Ford dealership in my Opel EV and a very pleasant gentleman had to swipe his card to start charging. Oh, and no charging poles had any display or app options, it literally had red, yellow or green led light and that's all we got. And it took me 1.5 hours to top up barely 100 km of range. Now that is an expensive 45k euro EV made no earlier than 2023 with minimal wear and mileage.

In short - Europe "rode" on a wave of rich individuals buying their fun cars and able to afford all externalities for them. This population is running out or leveling. And Europe (both collectively and per-country basis) did barely anything to prepare other people, without fun car money or private houses for EV transition. For example, in my freshly constructed building there are 180 apartments and zero EV chargers. Would any of us buy EV any time soon? Especially since just the car itself usually cost more than similar ICE and there are no subsidies? Doubt it. And it is starting to show, when wildly optimistic EV transition targets are starting being pushed in the future.

[pornel]

This problem is solved with infrastructure and legislation.

It's something that improves almost overnight - your situation can change from being stuck without a place to charge to having it completely solved. All it needs is chargers installed where you need them.

The "what about condos with no driveway" problem seems hard only because you're trying to project a suburban solution to an urban environment, which makes no sense regardless of EVs.

You don't need a driveway and a solar panel per person, you just need plugs wherever cars stay parked. As EV adoption increases, it's less of a niche need and more of how parking works. There are curb-side chargers. Lamp post chargers.

Charging doesn't have to be done overnight either. There are destination chargers at supermarkets, malls, gyms, office centers.

An EV driven in a city needs to be DC charged for ~20 minutes once a ~week. This is pretty easy to fit in a weekly routine of a car-dependent person, where infrastructure exists.

The infrastructure exists where it breaks through the chicken-egg problem. Nobody will roll out 500 charging plugs in a parking garage if there are only handful of regular EV users, and people won't buy EVs when their town has only one public charger (broken).

But once there's the critical mass, the infrastructure gets used, pays for itself. You get choices and competition instead of putting up with your only crappy option.

For that reason I expect EU to get momentum that US won't. EU has thrown money at the problem, and in some cities it's already very good, close to being a completely solved problem, while the US is a decade behind and has ideological objections against catching up.

[tpm]

US will not overtake the EU on EVs in the near future.

> Norway's experience can't and won't be transferred to other countries

It's already been transfered to Denmark - close to 100% of private sales there are EVs, businesses are a bit lower. Sweden and Finland are between 40-50%, Netherlands and Belgium close to 40%. The major markets of France and Germany along with Austria and Portugal are 25% to 30%. Italy, Spain and central/eastern Europe are much lower, but that will change too. Altogether the EU is at around 20% EVs of the total passenger car market (ignoring PHEVs and the other hybrids as those are ultimately dead ends). This will continue to rise because of the fleet emission fines which make ICEs more expensive, together with carmakers creating cheaper EVs and more factories opening.

The USA is at 5%.

China is at 40%.

And the continually updated source of these numbers is here:

https://robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/

[pixelatedindex]

> I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion. Almost no charging spots in any of them, or maybe 1-2 spots per 200 apartment building AND they are priced even higher than high cost basic concrete parking place.

Anecdotal but it’s been my experience too here in the US. I don’t have a home to plug my car in and I really don’t want to deal with these charging games where you need an app and you have to queue and then be ready to swap your car in. Then you have to keep in mind when it’s done because others are in line. It’s such a hassle that I’m not getting an EV anytime soon. Plus my current vehicle runs without issue and probably will for the next 5-8 years (or more)

[Hikikomori]

Also live in a ~1 mil EU city. We have a lot of 50-100+ year old buildings, they typically have no parking at all. Newer and larger apartment complexes typically have underground parking with lots of spaces. But the city is adding charging on street parking spots all over the city. I also have a fast charger 1 minute from my building, I vibe coded a plugin in home assistant that keeps track of free spots so I can always go and charge if I need to.

Would however be nice if the state/cities provided subsidies for apartment buildings to build charging spots, at least our tenant owner/cooperative type that are popular here.

[rsynnott]

> I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion.

This may be a country-specific thing. They seem to be pretty common in new-build apartment complexes in Ireland, say (I believe because there's a government grant for it).

> Especially since just the car itself usually cost more than similar ICE and there are no subsidies?

That seems to be changing now, at least for small cars. Price of id.Polo including subsidies in Ireland: 20k. Price of (unsubsidised) normal non-electric Polo: 26k. Even if subsidies were removed, these would be about the same price. (Ireland may be an unusually extreme case, because cars are subject to an emissions-based tax (VRT), but the trend is clear).

> Interop is crap, I've used a corporate EV Astra while on a business trip and the card didn't work anywhere outside of the office parking lot,

This is getting fixed, though in typical EU fashion it'll take a while. The Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, brought in a couple of years ago, requires all public EV chargers to support standard contactless payments (ie they can't require a subscription or special app or whatever), but it only really applies to new equipment for now; the obligation for _existing_ equipment won't come in until the start of next year.