I think it is absolutely true that people who don't want to be early adopters shouldn't be. At the same time: I had no regrets about being a DVD early adopter, because (hot take incoming) DVDs were in fact better than VHS tapes, and not dealing with VHS's badness was really nice, even if it was also annoying in some ways. Similarly, there are going to be people who are happy being EV early adopters because the (very real) wins of EVs outweigh the early adopter annoyances.
"This technology is still relatively new, and if you buy into it, you're going to have some early adopter pains" is a fine message that will help people sort out what they personally want to do, but isn't the same as a blanket "wait until they improve."
It's a different risk: if your novel DVD player did not work, you could just watch something else. If your novel EV doesn't charge, you may be left stranded, miss a flight or fail to reach medical care. Moreover, no government planned to ban VCRs using those early problematic DVD players as a justification.
As an early adopter, the benefit of less maintenance, home "refueling", and the fact that an EV is more fun to drive offsets the hassle. We've done a few road trips in it, and while road trip charging is annoying (we have a VW ID4, so the CCS network) its still worth dealing with because we enjoy the EV.
Personally I think right now EVs are a great second car for almost everyone because you get the benefits of an EV but can fall back to your gasoline car for trips. We're still in the early adopter phase of "primary" car right now, where you need to be aware of the drawbacks.
That's the thing about cars: their real test (or importance) is not the 90% of the time spent in the "happy path" (short, planned drives after a full night charge). It's to address those edge but critical cases - long trips, unexpected drives, off-the-beaten-path routes.
Another thing rarely raised is the correlated nature of traffic issues. Charging is fine now, mostly because it seems there is a huge over-provisioning of chargers compared to EVs on the road. What happens with busy days? An evacuation order sending 1M people on the same route at the same time? For ICEV there is an easy solution. Not for EVs.
Toyota/Honda ICE cars my extended family owns usually go many years without more than an oil change every 8-10k miles. Maintenance costs are absolutely trivial if you go Japanese. Heck even the Chevys made it to 200k when we sold them with no major mechanical issues. The costs of ICE maintenance seem to be the most overblown electric selling point. FWIW I dream about ways to rationalize buying a Tesla.
mkozlows|2 years ago
"This technology is still relatively new, and if you buy into it, you're going to have some early adopter pains" is a fine message that will help people sort out what they personally want to do, but isn't the same as a blanket "wait until they improve."
noogle|2 years ago
tapoxi|2 years ago
Personally I think right now EVs are a great second car for almost everyone because you get the benefits of an EV but can fall back to your gasoline car for trips. We're still in the early adopter phase of "primary" car right now, where you need to be aware of the drawbacks.
noogle|2 years ago
Another thing rarely raised is the correlated nature of traffic issues. Charging is fine now, mostly because it seems there is a huge over-provisioning of chargers compared to EVs on the road. What happens with busy days? An evacuation order sending 1M people on the same route at the same time? For ICEV there is an easy solution. Not for EVs.
TexanFeller|2 years ago
Toyota/Honda ICE cars my extended family owns usually go many years without more than an oil change every 8-10k miles. Maintenance costs are absolutely trivial if you go Japanese. Heck even the Chevys made it to 200k when we sold them with no major mechanical issues. The costs of ICE maintenance seem to be the most overblown electric selling point. FWIW I dream about ways to rationalize buying a Tesla.
nikau|2 years ago
Why not just get a pehv
matthewdgreen|2 years ago