>> There are very very very few places without electricity in the world.

Today. Right now. This is happening. Not Africa or Antarctica. In Canada. In a national park during a busy long weekend.

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/be-prepared-officials-warn-of-po...

" Should the situation worsen, Richard Ireland, Jasper's mayor, recommended residents and visitors to the park ensure their essential electric devices remain fully charged and that their vehicles have full tanks of gas — since gas stations rely on electricity.

"We are already prepared to move to generated power for our own critical infrastructure, but that does not power lights in a residential home or your fridge or anything else," Ireland said. "So be prepared.""

> ensure their essential electric devices remain fully charged and that their vehicles have full tanks of gas — since gas stations rely on electricity.

They could also advise that "your EV batteries remain fully charged since EV charging stations rely on electricity."

Yes that is a story, but what is its relevance to what I am writing?

A huge number of people are about to lose electricity at precisely the time they most need it, should they need to flee in an EV. Lack of electricity is not a rare occurrence.

From the exact same quote, gas doesn't get pumped when the electricity goes out either:

> Jasper's mayor, recommended residents and visitors to the park ensure their essential electric devices remain fully charged and that their vehicles have full tanks of gas — since gas stations rely on electricity.

I think there's a huge logical gap that people have when it comes to EVs.

The number of places with functioning gas pumps but no electricity is a rounding error.

I can keep a couple jerry cans of gas around and toss them in the back of a ICE to get 150-200% of my range, or share with people in need. You cannot do this with an ev.

Sure thing, but keeping 10 gallons of gasoline is more than a couple of cans. And even then, so what? How many people need to do that, or will ever do that, except for off-roading or obscure jobs?

This is a legitimate use, but for a vanishingly small number of people. Back when LED lights were first being pushed, we saw a lot of the same resistance to a new product that was superior for nearly every single use case, except a vanishingly small number of use cases. EVs are really similar. In 10 years we will look back on the resistance to EVs and find it a bit silly and overly fearful.

20L can is half to a quarter of range, two 20L cans will fill the tank of a miata, half the tank of a tacoma.

For people in a city who never leave it? EVs are great. Everyone else not so much. Personally I think plug in hybrids are the future because they overcome this but seems everyone just wants to push pure evs.

EVs are great for anyone who hasn't had to haul around extra gas in cans to get to where they want to go. Which is easily 99% of the population.

LED lights burn out prematurely in over half the fixtures in my house because they are fully enclosed. The bulbs can’t take the heat. This is true even for bulbs that claim they are suitable for use in fully enclosed luminaires. I have switched back to compact fluorescents.

It seems to me that EV advocates aren’t very similar to what we see with LED bulbs. EV advocates refuse to even acknowledge that EVs are not for everyone. Instead they want to ban alternatives. At least I can still buy compact fluorescent bulbs.

It’s as if laptop computer advocates wanted to ban desktops. Surely the laptop is all anyone needs.

You say: "EV advocates refuse to even acknowledge that EVs are not for everyone."

But my comment was: "This is a legitimate use, but for a vanishingly small number of people."

Perhaps because you suggest that the areas OP is referring to have near zero population when clearly that is not the case.

That is not the sort of area I was referring to. This area is served both by electricity and gas stations. And the quote has a reminder that, just as with essential electric devices getting charged, such as an EV, people should keep a full tank of gas.

And I would note that it's far easier to keep a full charge when you do your charging at home than it is when you need to leave the house to prepare and fill up on gas.

In the early years of aviation, Pan America used a huge fleet of sea planes. They did that because modern airports didn't exist yet, but ships were common and harbors provided the basic infrastructure they needed to operate.

We don't use sea planes much anymore, because aircraft now have their own dedicated airports.

I think of giant batteries on electric vehicles as being basically the same thing as a giant pontoon on an airplane: it's there because the infrastructure isn't good enough that we can leave it behind. In the case of EVs, I think what we need in the long run is electrified roads so that range becomes a non-issue for almost everyone, and we can use batteries that are half the size or less.

> When gas cars were first around, people carried extra gas around with them.

There are still isolated places where this is useful. I've done it when offroading.

This is routinely necessary in my area and line of work.

> There are very very very few places without electricity in the world.

In the first world. Billions live in places with no or unreliable electricity.

And that will change as renewable energy and cheap storage make micro grids economically feasible, where transmission with centralized power generation is too expensive.

In these places, EVs will be far superior to gas vehicles because they will require less infrastructure and the EVs supplement the micro grid are an asset for it.

"Cheap storage" with the capacity for a week-long cloudy cold snap, epescially given how demanding EVs are, doesn't exist and will likely keep not existing for decades. So for now, if you want 24/7 electrity, your only option is a real large grid. Meanwhile gasoline cars just need a tank to store gas

I don't think you are talking about the same areas I'm talking about.

In areas where heating buildings interiors is a significant energy need, and has week long cold snaps, then there's extremely cheap storage in the form of therma storage, which combines very nicely with heat pumps, and it exists today. Bury insulated thermal sinks underground and a ton of summertime energy can be stored up seasonally.

However I'm not aware of any large populations of people that live in colder climates that do not yet have electricity and are looking to change their living standards in the coming decades.