At least in the US, this is very regional. As an example, I don’t use a car at all for commuting or short local trips because I live in a dense urban area. When I do need a car it is almost invariably for those cases where range and recharging are a material limitation, so I have an ICE.
In the agricultural regions of the US where I’ve lived in the past, distances are intrinsically long even in the small cities and infrastructure sparse. Real shopping may be 70+ miles away (but road speed is 80-85 mph so not that long). In other non-coastal city I’ve lived it was normal for people to do a 300 mile (each way) drive twice a month between cities. While more niche, a lot of working trucks in the agricultural and mining regions of the West are modified to increase their range — almost twice the range of the F-150 Lightning on a single charge. There is little charging infrastructure at all, and what exists is clearly positioned to target tourists from the coast, not the driving patterns of people that live there. There may be charging stations in these towns one day but I suspect it won’t be for a long time and range will still be a very real issue for a significant percentage of people.
There is a chicken-and-egg problem with the lack of range and lack of charging stations that make them unusable in many parts of the US. If no one buys EVs then no one will build charging stations, and the lack of range in regions that really need range means they aren’t a practical vehicle absent ubiquitous charging stations in places that probably won’t pay for the investment.
In the agricultural regions of the US where I’ve lived in the past, distances are intrinsically long even in the small cities and infrastructure sparse. Real shopping may be 70+ miles away (but road speed is 80-85 mph so not that long). In other non-coastal city I’ve lived it was normal for people to do a 300 mile (each way) drive twice a month between cities. While more niche, a lot of working trucks in the agricultural and mining regions of the West are modified to increase their range — almost twice the range of the F-150 Lightning on a single charge. There is little charging infrastructure at all, and what exists is clearly positioned to target tourists from the coast, not the driving patterns of people that live there. There may be charging stations in these towns one day but I suspect it won’t be for a long time and range will still be a very real issue for a significant percentage of people.
There is a chicken-and-egg problem with the lack of range and lack of charging stations that make them unusable in many parts of the US. If no one buys EVs then no one will build charging stations, and the lack of range in regions that really need range means they aren’t a practical vehicle absent ubiquitous charging stations in places that probably won’t pay for the investment.
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