| 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. |