I especially like the ones who have never ridden an ebike seem to know next to nothing about them have the strongest and loudest opinions against them.
Yeah, it's mostly jealously but they will get it one day.
It's the same with electric cars. The ones who know the least, hate the most. And it's hard to blame them when they are getting screwed paying $4/gallon at the pump all the while there are not enough good EV's to go around so prices have risen out of reach for most people. So I understand their jealousy and anger.
The most ignorant anti-EV arrogant people say things like:
Oh, yeah, good luck trying to take a road trip in that. I don't want to wait an hour for it to charge.
I hope it doesn't catch on fire!
Yeah, I get the no gas thing, but what do you do when you run the battery flat?
For those who have never lived with a fully electric, battery electric long-range car, yeah, the things people worry about just seem asinine. For example, statistics show that gasoline cars catch on fire at a rate 10 times higher than BEV's per million miles travelled. And my longest charging stop was 25 minutes (and only because there were no Superchargers yet in Flathead Valley, Montana). My typical road trip charging stop is 12-15 minutes which is barely enough time to pee and maybe get a cold drink or something to snack on while driving. And, of course you don't want to run the battery flat any more than you want to run out of gas (and it's even easier to track exactly how far you can go in an EV because they have more detailed digital tools and the car knows where all the chargers are and whether or not to stop at one.).
But it might help non-EV owners to know that even EV drivers were ignorant at some point before they "got it". For example, my wife and I kept our Volvo sitting out by the curb in case we wanted to take a road trip. But it just sat there when we discovered road trips were even better in an EV. Nobody wanted to drive it. Ever. Nobody wanted to take it in for an oil change (or pay for it). I would guilt trip my wife into using it occasionally so the battery wouldn't go flat but she would never put gas in the tank. It became a complete liability even though it ran perfectly. So, we sold our last gas car four years ago and it's quite a relief.
My younger brother is a die-hard analogue mountain biker, but he is slowly becoming eMTB curious. He knows and respects a lot of old-school MTB'ers who built the MTB trails in the area so when he sees them getting eMTBs, then he starts to think it just might be a good thing. He talks to them in the cafe and was surprised how many of them have already warmed up to the idea. Now, just like buying a long range EV, it's just a matter of saving up enough money to make it work. He already wants an EV but has decided to save money by driving his gasoline and diesel cars into the ground before getting a new EV. The depreciation on gasoline and diesel cars bought new in 2023-2026 is going to be steeper than most new car buyers can stomach.
Haters are gonna hate, until they adopt and love! So have patience!
