In Netherlands you could also get paid for charging your car. There is such thing called ERE Certificates - emission reduction unit certificate is generated by offsetting emissions. Pollutters have to buy them to offset the harm. It's up to 0.1 euro per KWh (electricity costs 0.28 euro per KWh), depending on the demand.
Technically, anything what you plug into your car charger would do. The requirement is to have a licensed meter in the charging box. When setting up, you configure connection to your ERE provider and it just reports.
There is still no widespread charging infra. Oh sure, there are chargers. If you're lucky and your town is on a state highway there might be one or two chargers in the entire town — their purpose being so visitors don't become stranded.
Outside of cities, they are not there in sufficient quantity for widespread adoption.
The apartment problem has not been solved either, and people do not have the time in their lives to dedicate to charging at a shared public charger.
Europe still loves its compact manual transmission cars; but what we may see is a transition away from diesel to petrol vehicles strictly for cost reasons.
I’m not claiming this to be an entirely solved issue, but the situations in which EVs make sense are already very broad and keep expanding. The city I live in has lantern chargers (admittedly not everywhere), some others are building them into curbs. Apartment parking spaces and garages are getting chargers installed. If you live rurally, chances are high you can install your own.
I’m in the US but I’m basically charging the same way. 16A 240v. I’ve accidentally stepped it down to 13A and didn’t really notice. If you sleep, and can plug your car in while you do so, you can charge.
Strangely I’d expect urban centers with apartments and street parking to be the problem.
In the US Electric vehicles are easier for those who can park a car next to an outlet they own. We have a lot more suburbia with people owning their own charging.
that's fine; the issues that electric cars are trying to solve in congested urban areas aren't as prevalent in rural areas, where diesel engines are still going to be doing most of the work anyway
ideally an apartment would have underground parking with chargers where needed. but i don't get to design cities irl :)
the distances traveled in rural areas, along with the power you need to get through that terrain, makes combustion a decision made from a different dimension. excited for solar tractors however!
My apartment was built before EVs were common and doesn't have charging in our underground parking. And it's apparently difficult to add (some neighbours looked into it).
And do people in rural areas frequently need to drive 1000 km per day? EVs have had a pretty decent range these days. Not enough for long haul trucking, but good enough for most things short of that.
But urban traffic is absolutely a perfect fit for electric micromobility vehicles. Less so for cars in general.
You are complaining about an article just talking about how sales are increasing as being too black and white while posting repeatedly trying to think of edge cases where EVs aren't a great option. It's like it's awesome your thinking experiment managed to come up with a situation where 0.001% of people can't use an EV but why do you think that is relevant or important to the actual article?
"compact manual transmission cars" means cheapest cars you can get. Nobody loves them, but they were cheap. They aren't cheap anymore and if TCO points to a small EV, people will buy that one.
If my memory servers right, in 2008 you could buy a new Dacia Sandero for under 6000 euro in our country (EU). It's over 13600 right now for the current generation.
Sadly, it is—I recently moved to Ireland from the US, and it's annoyingly difficult to find an automatic transmission here. (Fortunately, I'm not currently in the market for a car; I live and work in Dublin, where the public transport is fantastic by American standards, and passable by European.)
>The apartment problem has not been solved either, and people do not have the time in their lives to dedicate to charging at a shared public charger.
this looms much larger in the imagination than in reality given that the average urban European drives about 9-15km per day. If you're living in a space where charging space is in short supply you in all likelihood drive so little you maybe need to charge 3 times per month.
The problem is not the chargers, for example in my country, we would need to double our energy production, transport capacity, to phase out fossil fuels. The costs would be enormous, double the infra work in the last 70 years.
Maybe Trump is a secret green energy fan and figured the only way to convert the world was to shut off gulf production? Also Russian production is not doing well and the final step may be taking out North American production in the Canada wars.
EVs plus charging with a grid powered by solar when the sun shines bright at midday is one of the most powerful forces in averting anthropogenic climate change.
I would say removing the need for personal vehicles were possible would be a much more powerful force, but yours is much more practical at least short term (decade's time frame).
I do find it funny that the idea of removing cars (not all of them mind you) is somehow seen as the equivalent of teleportation. In our modern society, I get it, it is practically the same mentally and yet objectively they are very different.
Complete aside, I wish that we had things like that, like doorways to other parts of the world.
Let's go to lunch in Tbilisi walks through door to there. Once done, just walk back through to home.
I mean, I feel like even if petrol wasn't as expensive as it is, the sales would be booming anyway, maybe a sliver slower - for the simple reason that affordable EVs are now here and they are pretty damn good now. After years and years of lamenting "where are the EVs for your average Joe Smith" - they are now here. Funnily enough, they aren't made by Volkswagen or Peugeot, but they are here anyway.
And Europe's cheapest new car - Dacia Spring - is an EV.
You're delusional if you think an EV is affordable for an average person. The average person barely makes enough to cover rent, food, bills and save a little money - 15-30k EUR for an entry level EV is out of question. Meanwhile most people can afford to get a late 90s/early 00s used car that will actually get the job done.
In the uk, there can be good deals on used EVs. My Hyundai Kona EV (64kWh) (2022 plate) was £18K for a 18 month old car with 9K miles on the clock and lots of options. It does about 280 miles on a charge and I do have the advantage of cheap home charging (8p per kWh) so it’s under a £5 for my weekly commute.
A big step up from my old Ford fiesta, just look for the deals
According to this data an average Brit would be able to save about 600 GBP monthly if they never had any extra expenses outside of rent and living costs. I don't think even a "good deal" 18k vehicle is affordable for that person.
If they are driving then they are currently potentially spending a couple of hundred pounds a month on fuel for a subcompact car. We are breaching the monthly cost of a car loan to move to electric purely in the cost of petrol.
Even going off your £18k price, a car loan search shows it would be under £200 per month. Not sure where they pulled £600 from.
But filling up my wife's compact Peugeot 208 (I think?) was £75 over the weekend. Filling up twice is almost the same monthly cost as buying a larger electric SUV.
It definitely seems like it would be worth investigating your options.
It did seem odd, I usually buy used cars around 10K and 18 months old. But after getting friends and recommendations for EVs and a decent trade in to offset the 18K a little and some savings and finance, I went for the Kona. Won’t go back.
I used to have a diesel Renault Clio, thankfully I don’t have it anymore at the current £2 per litre for diesel.
On the commute into Edinburgh today, there’s plenty of newer cars than mine and quite a few EVs, so some people are buying them.
£18k is something like 60% of the median income in the UK after taxes. And that doesn’t even include the other associated costs. Average people would view that as a major expense.
Many people don’t have the elasticity in their month-to-month expenses that is assumed here.
Average fleet age in EU looks to be around 13 years so when you say "most people", you're likely off by 10-15 years in terms of second hand purchases. Greece might be the only EU country that gets close to what you said. I get the point about affordability but it's good to base discussion on facts.
Also, EVs have been around for quite a few years now so it is no longer necessary to buy them new.
Thanks. Too late to edit. If anybody wants the actual link, Google can figure it out from my download path. :) The only PII in the link is also in my username. It also leaked that I'm probably a Linux user.
If you worry about such failure modes, you shouldn't drive a car at all.
And especially not one with an ICE.
The main batteries most often have a 8y/160,000km guarantee. (Some even more.)
There a enough affordable, used BEVs that are only a quarter through that milages and age.
ICE engines eat themselves in many more different kinds of weird ways: timing chains and belts, coolant leaks, any number of problems with valves and actuators. They're extraordinarily complex devices and it's a testament to engineering genius (and persistence) that we've made them this reliable. But they fail much more often than batteries or motors. They have many more moving parts. It's just the devil we know.
I've got two EVs. Basically zero problems. I've known one or two people who have had issues, but never with the drive train. Always something dumb like the "infotainment system" or (for a Tesla owning friend) stupid buzzing and vibration they couldn't make go away and stupid problems with door handles.
The Tesla weirdness is part of why I went with Nissans. They're 100% normal cars except for the electric drive train. All the other parts can be purchased at AutoZone and everything else can be worked on by a normal mechanic.
There's some mechanics in my area that have been learning how to do stuff with EVs like aftermarket battery upgrades on older models, but it's a bit expensive. Mine are 5 and 13 years old respectively and both batteries are fine. The 5yo one is the same as the day it was bought. The latter's lost some capacity but still very usable as a city car.
We picked up a used 2022 Leaf S+ a while back and it's been amazing.
Also just about the only shade tree mechanic EV. Even swapping a battery is doable by the typical car guy. Rebuilding one isn't much harder due to no cooling.
At least in Europe people still buy cheap new cars.
In the US the people who can afford new cars generally want massive SUV's. Meanwhile a lot of the people buying used cars often would prefer a bare bones small vehicle with fewer years and lower miles than something fancier or larger but with more miles. But of course those aren't available since nobody buys those things new. Which leads to the ridiculous outcome that a lightly used Honda Civic is basically the same price as a new one.
I mean, I'll be honest - I feel like you knew exactly what I meant but then twisted it to make a point you wanted to make.
Yes, obviously your average person buys a second hand car and new car prices(all of them, not just EVs) are out of reach.
But the article is about sales(as in - new car sales) - and your average Joe Smith buying a new car is increasingly likely to buy an EV because among other new cars, EVs have actually became affordable.
In the US that would be many parts of the Mountain West, for example, though it is not the only region where it applies.
Unpredictable closures of highways can happen in the middle of nowhere after you’ve already been driving for 3 hours. I’ve had unplanned detours of up to 150 miles more than once. It is more common than people expect.
There are stretches of highway where it is 100+ miles between gas stations, never mind chargers, so it becomes a range risk even for ICE cars. I’m not the OP but when I’m driving in that part of North America I try to keep my range above 200 miles for this reason. It has saved me from being stranded more than once.
Alternatively, a backup plan for people with experience in those areas is to use ranch and forestry trails to route around the highway closures if feasible. This requires a vehicle suitable for that terrain. Few if any EVs are.
That said, most Americans rarely do long-haul driving in the backwaters of the American West. But if you do it enough, high ground clearance and reliable 400+ miles range in all weather conditions is a safety requirement.
The only reason I don’t have an EV is that most of my driving miles are like that. I don’t drive in the city where I live. No EV currently made credibly delivers that kind of performance but a lot of cheap ICE vehicles do.
Eventually EVs will get there but they aren’t there today.
Yeah, the US is harder on EVs. In Europe, finding a place 160km from the next gas station is going to be essentially impossible. Maybe in the part of Russia that is technically Europe, or far north Finland/Norway/Scotland, but even that's doubtful. (Those places do have recommendations for survival gear if you get stuck in winter. But look at EVs in Norway...)
The only EVs that offer this range are going to be very expensive. They'll either be from pricey companies like Lucid or they'll be extended-range vehicles from other makers. Are there any under $50k? Most are probably over $60k, and some will be double that.
I'm actually impressed that GM managed to get the base model price down, If I recall they originally launched closer to 75K.
Although, I don't think the base model will do 492 miles, I'm guessing it's more like 250-300.
I'm still not sure whether GM just completely mis-managed the thing (which GM is known to do) or not. I say that because it is full-size-ish, but that creates the problem of it being a heavier unibody, and when we talk about EVs, 'weight of base vehicle and the batteries to move it' can become a Delta-V-ish problem.
As a sort of example, I'll point to the Cybertruck; it's honestly probably even more 'brick-ish' aerodynamically than the Silverado EV, but it weighs 1000 pounds less (or so) and thus gets 20-60 miles more range than the Silverado EV base despite the battery being not much larger as far as capacity.
Possibly also worth noting though, that Delta-V-ish problem means the Silverado EV in some configurations has a curb weight high enough it can't go on some residential streets.
IDK. GM got kinda-smart with how they handled EVification of their CUVs (i.e. start with midsize, move down, be aggressive on pricing) but the Silverado EV still strikes me as classic GM WTFery
It's better for the body to keep driving sessions to 3-4 hours max before you get up walk around and charge a bit. 330 mile range is more than enough. If you only use 60% of the battery to maximize its lifespan you can drive for 3.5 hours roughly before you deplete a battery from 80% -> 20%.
There are a number of plausible rural drives in north america which do not have fast chargers for over 400 miles. EV infrastructure in the US is primarily concentrated on high-volume highways.
We're talking about people taking long rural trips -- stopping at a 50kw charger adds 50% of time to an 8 hour trip -- nobody driving a gasoline car would stop for that long. You'd need a 250kw charger to do what a person would normally do on a trip like that -- stop, piss, stretch your legs and get some fast food. Nobody who drives that route wants a 4 hour layover at the Speedee Mart gas station in Ainsworth, Nebraska -- if they can get the charger to work.
You’d need about 135 kwh total energy at 15kwh/100km efficiency. Assuming you leave with full battery - thats about 60kwh or a bit over an hour of charge at 50kw.
There are stretches of highway in the continental US that are >100 miles between exits, never mind chargers. That is almost a defining feature of the American West.
More importantly, these highways can be closed at unpredictable times for an unpredictable duration. It is not guaranteed that the route you planned is the route will take.
Aside from the routes the sibling comments mention, you also need to factor in the very real possibility that the chargers won't be functioning. It has gotten better but breakdowns still happen.
It's not necessarily 'normal', but it did happen to me last year.
Vacation in St Ignace Michigan. Stayed at an AirBnB rental.
No proper EV charger on-site at the rental, admittedly maybe the owner had an extension cord or something. Still, Then we'd be charging at a fairly low rate of mileage gain.
One day trip was 100 miles each way for optimum route. (Only charging stations known are near the AirBnB)
Another day trip was 76 miles each way for optimum route. (Only charging stations known are near the AirBnB)
The shortest day trip was 50-ish miles each way, but a whole thing happened where my wife left her phone at the restaurant so it was a total of 200 miles driven that day. (There are charging stations at both points for this one, but none in between.)
BTW, when I say 'optimum route' for the first two, I mean that for at least one of those the trip wound up being longer because of road construction.
I know one could say 'Well plan out charging in the morning'. But at the end of the day that just messes with the rest of the itinerary for a vacation where one could instead be exploring what you actually went on a trip for.
So in your worst case you were 100 miles from a charger? Not counting the fact you could have charged at the Airbnb if you'd made some prior arrangements? That doesn't sound bad and you were always well within range.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my general understanding is that if they had a long enough 120V extension cord (and I will admit, they might have in this case) I would have only gotten 5 miles an hour or so of charging at best.
So, either:
A- I have to go find a charging station, and pray to god that during a peak tourist weekend there is an open spot, so plan the wait into every day and hope my plan in the day schedule and pray it doesn't get disrupted by the other tourist traffic.
or
B- I would get maybe 60-ish miles of range added each night leaving the thing plugged in when we are at the AirBnb.
I want to be clear about this, I'd be fine with an EV if the charging infrastructure made sense, as it stands today however the ideal state for me and my wife would require a plugin hybrid and an EV or a Plugin Hybrid and a Hybrid.
Besides the insanity of picking a place to stay where you are several hours of driving from your planned destinations every day they could have topped up over night then spent a few minutes each day at chargers to fill up completely if they were worried.
At no point was there any risk of them being without charge even on their longest driving day.
Maybe not during a summer vacation, but in the winter, the only bridge connecting St Ignace to lower Michigan can often close in inclement weather, along with parts of i75. Having plenty of charge can be literally a life-or-death situation in the winter there. It's not uncommon for people to spend the night in a snow drift. And if not that, you need to plan for overnight contingencies and detours.
I'd rather be in an EV in a snowbank where there is almost certainly more than enough power to run a heater for 24 hours. Bonus since I don't have to worry about snow accumulation blocking the exhaust and killing me.
If you are stuck in a snowbank your fuel doesn't matter. Staying warm until help arrives is the issue. Like above you are shifting goalposts.
You are raising issues in this post that I would guess impact less than a hundredth of a percent of the driving population of North America. These are really not issues we need to be concerned about and they are very easily solved by installing more chargers. It's a solved problem without demand.
So bluntly I don't understand the points of your comments at all. Is there places where it will take longer to drive an EV currently yes. Is there are two points in the mainland us where you cannot reach because of a lack of chargers no. Do 99.99% of people find themselves in these areas in a given lifetime? Also no.
This attitude of dictating others' car needs for them is one of the biggest hindrances to EV adoption and is also why rolling back CAFE regulations is going to be more popular than you think it is.
The general public doesn't like being told what to do.
The real cause of people's frustration with the US car market isn't CAFE, but the fact that the car market in the US is bifurcated by class and heavily financially engineered. The reason you can't get a cheap car in the US is entirely because US manufacturers are dictating what people can buy -- why give the middle class affordable options when you can make more money by squeezing them for cash for 84 months? What are they going to do, ride the non-existent bus?
The average car that CARS took in was a 1996 model year with 138,000 miles in 2009. Even if we never did that program they'd be long gone by now.
The current crazy pricing is mostly due to supply that was cut off during covid -- those would all be prime used cars today -- but many were never made, so used car pricing is crazy -- and manufacturers have no incentive to create cheap new cars if buyers don't have other options.
Most cars that are 30 years old with 318,000+ miles are no longer in service, which is what the average cash for clunker car would have today.
And even if they are still on the road they different enough in quality that they are not affecting the resale price of covid era cars. People do not cross shop 2021 cars with 60k miles with 1996 cars with 300k+ miles.
I don’t think people understand how convenient it is to be able to go 1000+ KM without thinking about filling up or charging, even if it isn’t in one trip.
I could do it in a 2002 Jetta. Why can’t I do it in a vehicle 25 years newer?
That’s a normal run for long-distance driving in the US. You stop for only a few minutes when you run out of fuel to fill the tank, which may coincide with a concurrent bathroom break. I don’t know anyone that regularly makes 20-30 minute stops on these kinds of trips even once. That adds up to a lot of unnecessary lost time.
Human endurance is more about the end-to-end time. Breaks barely help at all.
I've done a few road trips (2023, 2024, 2025) where It was 10 or more hours of driving without even factoring stops in.
Fuel-ups can be as fast as 5 minutes, if you have a co-pilot to run in and grab whatever else you need from inside while you travel. Might have one or two longer breaks in there for a proper lunch.
> Human endurance is more about the end-to-end time.
Yep. You also optimize for the drive itself; i.e. metering your overall methods and timing of hydration etc to avoid needing extra bathroom stops, making sure any food eaten can either be eaten quickly, or safely eaten while driving on a long boring highway (i.e. Tacos bad, simple burgers or sandwiches good.)
For an 800-ish mile drive in one day, longer stops make a huge difference from being able to make it all the way through with reasonable daylight.
> Breaks barely help at all.
Yep, too long of a break winds up having a negative effect where you get too relaxed.
Heck, in 2020 I did a shorter drive to a different region, but instead of a Ford Maverick that got 35-40MPG and 400+ miles to a tank, I was in my WRX which got maybe 330-ish miles per tank, and the extra stops definitely had me much more drained by the end of the trip.
(Although, it's also worth noting that the Maverick is a lot more 'comfy' than my WRX from a posture standpoint, which may have been a factor.)
to each his own but tbh that sounds like a really terrible travel experience.
I suppose I get wanting to get somewhere faster, but I honestly don't think Id want to put myself through it vs taking longer and enjoying the journey a bit more.
if you are putting yourself through that regularly you probably do need an ice car (for now, high speed charging and battery size is making progress too).
I've driven that long without an extended break beyond running to the bathroom and grabbing a snack. Even a fast charger won't get you much in 3 minutes or so.
I've also been on 24+ hour trips where we switched off drivers every 6 hours or so. Stopping too long for too many times on a trip like that adds up.
I can get about that on a tank of gas in my cmax. I wouldn't drive it non stop, but it means I can fill up before a long (for me) trip, drive a few hours, stop for food and restrooms, and drive on to my destination without stopping for gas. If it's not that long, I may be able to drive back too, without filling up.
If there's a charger close enough to a restaurant you'll eat at, that sounds convenient, and I've seen a lot more chargers on my long distance drives... but usually not at the restaurants I want to go to.
Exactly. Maybe it is just me, but with a range around 450km I feel like I’m planning trips around filling up. It’s something I never thought about before.
Now I am stuck in line ups for gas because I can’t decide I don’t need it. This is true even just around town.
Maybe it’s a first world issue. It gets better all the time though. Maybe next car.
I don't think people understand how incredibly convenient it is to wake up to a vehicle with a full "tank" every single morning. I'll take that over a Jetta that can do 1000 miles on a tank without any hesitation.
Well, the question is how often do you do that drive. My family lives 4 countries away and about 12 hour of driving. I do that drive about once a year. But I have a young child so I don't like doing this in one go anymore, we usually stop halfway at a hotel, have some nice food, get some sleep and carry on the next day - so charging is solved(because we can just stay at a hotel with a charger). If you're driving to see them every week then maybe an EV is not quite right for you yet.
>>Making that a longer trip sounds like torture, but range is getting better all the time.
On the other hand, my sister drives A LOT. Like 1000 miles(1600km) a week a lot. And she was spending a fortune on diesel, so recently got herself a second hand Polestar 2, even though it's a long range model she gets a comfortable 300km before she has to charge it - and I asked her hey do you find charging it annoying. And she says no, because she usually has to stop for a pee every 3 hours anyway, the car needs 15-20 minutes on a fast charger for a top up and then she can carry on. Saves her an absolute fortune in fuel money. She drives up and down the country and so far it just hasn't been a problem at all.
>>I also rent, so I’m stuck at 120v charging at home. Does that limit the convenience?
Yeah, that's going to be the biggest problem I think. If you can't charge at home(or can only charge at ~1kWh/hour of charging) that's not going to be a great experience. Realistically you can only replenish 12kWh overnight using a basic 120V socket and that's just not a lot.
Who would have imagined that Vladimir Putin would oversee a sizeable NATO expansion, the reduction of European gas usage, and, in combination with Trump, the increased adoption of electric vehicles?
History may look back on them as having done rather a lot to move the world off of fossil fuels.
Or that Donald Trump would bring about less meat consumption, less oil consumption - twice!, internet decentralisation and end the global reliance on the dollar.
The Jeffrey Epstein Memorial War is the worst thing to ever hit the American auto industry and workers, since that industry is so far behind on EV adoption they'll never catch up to the Asian manufacturers.
It'll kill them, the Big 3 should be losing their everloving minds over it.
not really, Germans do hate electric cars as they don't go vroom vroom, there are no emotions transported while driving them and you are doing something for the environment.
A lot of germans hate EVs because the greens said they were good.
Gotta admit, Trump, with operation Epstein's Fury, probably did more for ecology and the fight against climate change than any other politician before him.
Gasoline would be $0.99 if EV platforms (build your own whatever) and low cost China Auto imports were available in America. But Elon has a hold on congress.
Being blunt, I don't think Elon is the only factor in that.
That protectionism is just as much in place for the sake of GM, Ford, and Stellantis, and their suppliers. In 2008 it was estimated that if the big three (Well, back then it was Chrysler instead of Stellantis) went under without a bailout [0], that up to 3 million jobs across the country were at risk. Michigan alone would have possibly lost over 8% of it's jobs.
We do see similar-ish protectionism in other countries as well, FWIW. Part of Toyota and Honda's lack of aggressive shifting to EVs is that a 'full shift' would remove millions of jobs from the workforce. Toyota has even published what could be considered propaganda in their home country about it [1].
It's an elephant in the room. European automakers are all struggling with it too, with various degrees of failure.
If there is one irony I will point out, it's that if they had all been more aggressive about hybrid technology for at least the last 15 years, they could have at least kicked the can down the road. Which honestly may have helped; part of the problem is that when things like engine or transmission plants are built, the amortization of the costs between the factory itself, training workers, expected retooling etc is measured and planned in the 10-30ish year range. The complacency means they have a bunch of assets that would be unpaletable write-offs.
Cause, Let's face it; every carmaker could have at least been doing even basic hybrids for most of their non-truck models for over a decade, which aren't perfect but would have raised the bar for MPG and improved the economies of scale faster [2].
[0] - For whatever it's worth, Ford at the time did not need a bailout, but did ask for a line of credit that it never had to use in case the others totally collapsed, because if that had happened it would have been a huge impact to their suppliers.
[2] - I'll point to the Ford Maverick, which initially launched at ~22K and got 35-40MPG in base configuration despite being a very large compact truck. IMO if the automakers got serious about the tech in 2010, we could have seen something at that price point at least 5 years sooner.
Those would hurt legacy auto much more than Tesla, which is why the last admin who had a lot of legacy auto union donations banned them. If anything Tesla will benefit from the charging infrastructure created due to a lot more EVs on the roads.
