EVs are mainstream now?

Try planning a trip from Seattle to Madison, WI and let me know how normal that feels for you.

Try driving from Mt Shasta to Sacramento in 115 degree heat and see how many fast chargers are working on I-5

I don’t think I would call EVs mainstream until your average renter has access to a home charger. It simply will never be mainstream if people have to worry about when they’ll be able to get their next charge.

Getting there? EV and hybrid were 16% of US 2023 sales.

All new apartment construction and shopping centers near us includes some EV chargers, so renters are slowly catching up. We're getting there. Until then it will be driven by homeowners and fleets.

As an apartment renter, unless they mandate or even completely subsidize existing apartment complexes of a certain size or larger (i.e 100+ residents or something along those lines) install EV charging it will remain an issue here.

The vast majority of apartments still have no EV chargers and simply aren't moving to get them installed at all.

I myself was in the market for an EV but would have trouble charging at my apartment. I messaged my apartment complex about installing EV support and whether they considered it and they basically sent a 1 sentence email which can be summarized as "lol no".

They're definitely a luxury good in areas where housing is expensive.

This is an accurate take. I own my house, so GM paid to install my charger. If I were s renter, they would have given me a bunch of charging credits instead. Every year, I'm seeing more chargers. It's rare for me to worry about charging the car.

Ok.

Seattle to Madison: https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=026855c9-03d6-408...

Mt Shasta to sac: https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=a5a84688-8fbc-412...

For some reason I have initial charge set to 40%, but even then there’s several chargers in range. At recharges are quick going to 60% which means if consumption is higher you could charge for a free more minutes and easily get to 80%.

Can you be more specific?

I have done the second drive a handful of times. The Anderson Rd and Airport Way Walmarts are your best bet for DCFC.

When temps are above 110, which is at least a month of normal summer weather, you will be lucky to have 2/5 chargers operating at those sites. And they will be throttled to 30kW which is a pitiful fraction of the advertised 350kW rate

EA didn’t install the transformers in the shade. They don’t work, period. This was my experience two summers in a row.

Imagine having kids and a dog in your car for a road trip and having to park for over an hour in direct sunlight at 3pm while you squeeze enough charge to limp through the wastelands of NorCal. And I-5 is still your best route.

I haven’t even tried the ride east through Idaho and Montana. In winter it will be much riskier and you have to put a lot more faith that the station is working as expected. The mountains and freezing temps will also add a huge variance to your estimated range.

We stayed at Leavenworth,WA in a cabin and there were exactly two EA fast chargers at a Safeway on the mountain. Woke up one morning in 20 degree cold with 25% charge and wasn’t sure I could even make it

As A renter, I wish more people thought like this. It is 100% the impediment for me going EV on my next vehicle purchase. I don't see apartment complexes like mine (built ca. 2000) retrofitting parking stalls for any level of charging without subsidy and lots of kicking and screaming.

By your definition garage doors aren’t mainstream because renters don't have ubiquitous access to them…

My definition of mainstream: nearly all major automotive companies offer EVs that are mass marketed.

Garage doors aren't mainstream by this definition because they aren't essential for owning a car. They're just a convenience.

EV charging is essential to owning an EV. Almost all EV manufacturers ask that you keep your EV plugged in practically as much as possible for battery health. In most apartment dwelling this is currently not a possibility and there isn't enough incentive for many existing complexes to install anything in much of the country.

At home charging isn't essential for owning an EV. They're just a convenience.

We can argue back and forth, about ubiquity vs mainstream, but ultimately the point I am making is that these definitions are merely opinions.

Who cares if evs are mainstream or not. If you can get at-home charging, speaking from my own experience, owning an EV is awesome. If you have to rely on public charging, it is not as convenient, and requires more effort.

If you are someone who goes to Costco, the PX, or Walmart to get gas, then using public charging is a wash. If you are like me, who uses the nearest gas station, public charging was a bigger pain than filling up a tank.

Here’s a more practical definition of mainstream:

CA has only 1 fast charging station per 5 gas stations, and they are by far the most kitted out state

And the biggest footprint of those is Tesla, which still is restricted to only Teslas

And a fill up with gas takes 5 minutes compared to up to 45 minutes at DCFC, assuming you aren’t waiting for one.

So yes “all major automotive companies offer EVs” but the mainstream experience that drivers expect is nowhere near there for an EV unless you own a home and have installed a charger.

If either of those were true Musk would sell Tesla and/or step down so he could have cash and time to do something else.

Something tells me there isn't a chance in hell of that happening.

This is unbelievable.

Insanely wealthy person is not interested in “making money per se”?

Nobody amasses this wealth without being financially obsessed. No amount of ‘effective altruism’-esque “I need more money so I can do more amazing things” justifies it, especially when you put so much on the line to…buy a social network and as a vanity project.

Elon Musk is not a God.

It actually does seem to be correct, in that Musk doesn't exactly spend his money on homes or cars or yachts or other material possessions - it seems all his money goes to philanthropy and his businesses (hence the 'per se').

Philanthropy?

> especially when you put so much on the line to…buy a social network and as a vanity project

This is not what people who are obsessed with money do.

How many high net worth individuals do you know / have you met?

Most of the ones I know consider money as a tool that can be used towards something, not as a goal by itself.

> Most of the ones I know consider money as a tool that can be used towards something, not as a goal by itself.

And if you need a massive amount of money to achieve a goal, you obsess about money. Elon (ostensibly) isn't building soup kitchens and community gardens.

> How many high net worth individuals do you know / have you met?

If you don't think wealthy people obsess over money, I'd honestly wonder how many YOU have met. Not fretting over small amounts of money, or not being ridiculously frugal does not mean that wealthy people do not stress over money.

If they really used money towards that goal, wouldn't they cease to be HNWIs? The fact that they still holding large wealth kind of contradicts what they're saying.

> Musk might have decided since a while that Tesla has a desperate need to pivot, because being a mass producer of a mature technology in the West is not sustainable in the long run.

I'm sorry just... what? Being in a position to sell products to a robust and demanding market is a bad thing? What in the Business Major brain are we saying here?

And frankly calling their products "mature technology" feels like a stretch given Tesla is regularly stubbing it's toe on pretty benign design problems that numerous other automakers have had nailed down for decades.

The usual point is that to "justify" Tesla total valuation they can't just be an automaker.

Almost seems like the valuation is the problem then, not being in the business of selling cars.

Yeah nothing about my Tesla is mature technology. Every update is a couple steps back. Every design revision is cost cutting and feature removal (in the name of simplicity of course). We still don’t have auto wipers that work.new still don’t have rear cross traffic alerts when backing up. The cars are laughably bad at parking themselves still. Tesla made a slightly polished MVP and stopped there.

My former boss who owns one once had to have their service person come up to Green Bay from Chicago (about 3 hours) because his stupid door handles wouldn't extend and he was stuck at a grocery store.

> Yeah nothing about my Tesla is mature technology

Do you honestly believe the battery, charging, inverter, motors and drive train are not mature tech?

I mean, both of Musk's endeavours after Paypal, that is, Tesla and SpaceX- were incredibly high-risk bets with the goal of opening entirely new markets where there was none (ev cars and private space launches). At the time Musk was justifying his choice of investments with the idea of doing something new and important for humanity (transitioning out of fossil fuels and colonise other planets)- but in any case it's clear that he wanted to work on something cool and that his choices were not driven primarily by a rational money-making strategy.

Fast-forward to 2024, while SpaceX is still delivering science fiction, Tesla is now an EV automaker among many- you can buy EV cars from any automaker and there is a deluge of cheap brands coming from China. Is Musk interested in owning and running a regular car company? I don't think so. I think he's desperate to find something else that is cool enough and incredibly high risk and high returns. Maybe using the capital and infrastructure from Tesla itself- and humanoid robotics seems a good candidate.

Well said. Tesla seems to struggle with things that other manufacturers find easy. The Model T had three floor pedals. The Cybertruck only has two.