If there were as many places I could charge up as there are where I could fill up, then maybe I'd get an electric car. But not until then. Even at the places where there are charging points, they are either occupied, not working, or are low charge rate points that take ages to supply what you need. Also, no standardisation on plug and sockets. The UK government has decided that no more ic-engined cars can be sold new from 2025 (or is it 2030, it doesn't really matter we will not be not ready in either case). Almost 50% of the public charging points are in London which is great for all the policy makers, but NBG for the rest of us. I doubt that there are enough power stations to supply the energy required if all the cars switched to battery powered.
I'm accustomed to seeing a certain amount of EV ignorance on the Internet in general, but I didn't think I would find it on an eBike forum! My wife and I have two Model 3's we bought 5 years ago and they are the best cars we've ever had. Even on roadtrips. I don't know how much truth there is to the third-party chargers being Inconvenient and unreliable (I don't use them), but I can tell you the Tesla Supercharger Network is not like that at all. My typical Supercharging stop is 15 minutes on long road trips and I have to hurry to take care of business. There is essentially zero waiting. I've never had to wait in line to charge (unlike with my gas cars, the stations with the best prices often had lines), the reliability of the Supercharger Network can't be beat, and they are FAST! My eBikes take hours to charge back up, not our EV's!
Unless Tesla opens their entire Supercharger Network up to cars with CCS charge ports, there really is only one choice if you like to drive long distances, a Tesla, and they all come with basic Autopilot for long freeway drives. I don't know how long it's going to take the CCS fast charging networks to start getting favorable reviews and competitive pricing. Tesla did the right thing when they used their own money to build a world class fast charging network as if the needs of their customers actually mattered. Funny how we don't see any fast chargers by Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Ford, GM or VW (who only built them when forced to as part of a court settlement for committing pollution fraud).
At the risk of being boring, one more point...
The batteries will last about 7 years, with range declining as they age. A new battery costs between £7k - £12k. Just think what that will do to the used car market! If I am forced to buy an EV it will be Personal Contract Purchase for me, let the car company take the risk.
Battery longevity?
Tesla battery packs will typically last 10-20 years or 200,000-500,000 miles. That's with the earlier generations of batteries. Newer packs can go up to a million miles before the range drops off enough to replace them. Heck, even the early packs are warrantied 8 years/120,000 miles and I don't think Tesla would be profitable if they were failing in 7 years! Tesla has one of the lowest warranty expenses in the automotive business, lower than most manufacturers of internal combustion powered cars.
We just bought our third Tesla, and our first used one, a 2018 Long-Range Model 3 with over 70,000 miles. It came new with 310 EPA miles and currently still has 302 miles of range after 5 years. That's less than 3% loss which is far less than 1% range lost per year. It's a little beat up by previous owners but it was only $28K and still drives like a new car. The powertrain is rock solid even though the previous owner never once changed the oil and filters. Oh, snap! Maybe that's because Tesla says there are no oil and filter changes!
Much of this EV ignorance is driven by negative misinformation campaigns to slow down the adoption of EV's by drivers of gas and diesel cars. There are plenty of big money interests out there that want you to think EV's are not quite ready yet. But nothing could be further from the truth. They just want to slow down the transition to EV's because it will be financial Armageddon to a long list of companies, and most of them are not even automakers!
