> I think electric cars win on every metric except range and refill/recharge time.

And price. Maybe everyone on here is a millionaire or about to become one, but $70,000 is a lot of money. Hell, even $20,000 is a lot of money for me (I live in Eastern Europe), even though for most of the people in here it looks like small change. And if it matters I am currently living a sort of middle class life in these parts of the world.

To be fair the iPhone was a ridiculously expensive proposition when first introduced - something like 3x the normal cost for top-of-the-range phones at the time.

The comparison is between cars, not price. Prices will come down eventually. When the iphone came out, did you cry about how it will always be a niche product because the nokia 3310 is so much cheaper?

For refill time, note that most electric car owners do almost all of their charging in their own garages overnight... not something that's common for gas-powered cars. Long trips are worse for electric cars, sure. But day-to-day driving? Charging is not an issue if you can charge in your garage.

For those of us who live in apartment buildings and don't have a garage where we can install such things, then what?

To me this has always been the biggest obstacle of an electric car.

There are a number of players looking to open up that market. It will be a second order effect, once electric charging becomes a market driver for high end apartments. See this link for a quick example: http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/15/chargepoint-offering-sol...

As electric cars become more and more popular, more and more apartment buildings will start offering charging stations. My condo building added them about 2 years ago.

"don't have a garage where we can install such things"

Why? In the frozen north its, maybe not customary, but not overly unusual, to have parking spots wired for engine block and battery heaters. Theres a whole cultural thing of not blocking other peoples access, a legal framework of not blocking sidewalks, when its OK to share, or not share, someones extension cord, stuff like that. Its just not a serious issue. The cost of one parking spot was rolled into my bachelor pad, but when space was available I could get another spot for $25/mo or whatever it was, surely a charger spot would have some minor additional costs, but chargers are pretty cheap compared to land and pavement and buildings.

I guess the only technological limitation I can think of is service drop size, if you wire up 200 parking stalls at 25 KW each you're probably going to have to upgrade the service drop or implement something "interesting" involving partial charge rates. Presumably someone will start shipping an apartment charger that can bluetooth pair with its neighboring chargers and cooperate such that the total average draw of the entire lot never exceeds 100 KW or something like that. 100 KW is a drop in the bucket for an apartment building, thats like 1000 watts worth of TVs or lights in each of 100 apartments. Dinner time on a hot summer night is a large multiple of that draw.

House service drops used to be just 60 amps a few decades ago and now 200 is pretty standard... if you think service drop upgrades for a house are expensive, imagine the cost of an entire apartment building upgrade LOL. Of course this may be a short term thing... solar panels may mean apartments will be net producers while the sun is up, soon enough.

Wait to buy an electric car until it's convenient for you to charge it?

That means few millenials will ever be able to own them; real estate is just too damn expensive to buy, nevermind the car that you really only can get once you own a house with a garage.

Lots of places don't have super-expensive real estate, unlike the Bay Area and Manhattan. More and more places over time will require apartment garages to have chargers -- already a law for new construction here in Palo Alto.

Personally, I charge at the city parking garage a block away.

The world is bigger than just the US.

Housing affordability is a major problem in almost every developed country.

> The world is bigger than just the US.

Sometimes it doesn't feel that way, at least according to people here on HN. I live in an apartment block which looks like this (https://www.google.com/search?q=bucharest+communist+flats&bi...), where normal people have actually starting physical fights, with fists and police intervention, over parking spots situated between those buildings, there's no way you could, I don't know, somehow charge your car when you live on the 7th floor.

So let me get this straight. In the "flyover country" where you DON'T get big city salaries, you're going to buy a $100k-$150k house because you don't make six figures. And then with all the leftover money that you don't have because you're not earning SF engineer salary, you're going to buy a car that costs anywhere from 25%-50% of your house?

Have you seen the vehicle culture in "flyover country"? You will absolutely see people put off repairs and upkeep to their house while they make sure they get a new car every 5 years (or stagger new cars with their spouse, 10 years for each because). If you haven't seen it, I can only ask you believe someone (me) with experience in it (various cities in Texas).

Would it surprise you as well to learn that "SF engineer" isn't the only job in the world that pays a high salary? In Houston for instance, I know dozens of people who earn comparable amounts from engineering in the medical and energy companies. And don't get me started on the consultancies that support them (megabucks) or salespeople paid on commission (ultrabucks). It's actually one of the biggest obstacles to our startup community here: luring good people away from their low-risk, high-salary position in energy, medicine and finance.

Yeah I've never lived in SF but I understand that the economics are different out there. Once you have a note on a million dollar house, what's another $80k for a car? It barely moves the needle.

But when your mortgage is only $1k/mo and then you have to spend another $1k/mo on a car (before insurance or "fuel" or anything else) you might start to wonder.

I've got a Subaru and I figure that car will cost me about $1500/year for the car and another $200/mo for fuel. That's $400/mo insured and everything versus the $1100-$1200 for the Tesla.

Look I'm not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE for people to buy electric cars. But the idea that somehow all the millenials who have generally been screwed by not buying real estate before interest rates went to zero are going to find the cash to start buying electric cars seems pretty laughable to me.

Will some do it? For sure! If you can pull down six figures somewhere with a reasonable cost of living it's totally doable. But there aren't too many places where you can make six figures without everything else costing more too.

EDIT: I live in flyover country. Always have. I'm talking from experience, not how I perceive things from my golden throne on the west coast.

Actually I do live in SF. If you put a million dollar note on a house you are the mother of all house poor.

One point I make is the Tesla is luxo-sport car. Costs a lot new like any other sporty car. So the cost of a new Tesla vs a used gasoline power car isn't really a fair comparison. Looking on Craigslist, you can get a used Nissan Leaf $10k, cost per mile is $0.035. One can run numbers but the cost of ownership is probably $300/mo.

Problematical in places like SF is the lack of parking and thus lack of charging. Though large numbers of people do have or rent garages. In Suburbs a problem can be many people have long commutes that exceed the range of an electric car.

Interestingly a friend just threw down for one of those million dollar homes in SF and is considering an electric car to avoid having to ride the google bus. I'll be interested in how it works our for him. I do have another friend that lives in Oakland, he has a leaf seems to like it.

> One point I make is the Tesla is luxo-sport car. Costs a lot new like any other sporty car. So the cost of a new Tesla vs a used gasoline power car isn't really a fair comparison. Looking on Craigslist, you can get a used Nissan Leaf $10k, cost per mile is $0.035. One can run numbers but the cost of ownership is probably $300/mo.

I guess that's kind-of my point. If millenials can't afford to buy houses they're probably not buying luxo-sports cars. It's not that a Tesla is a bad idea, it's just that the idea that millions of young people with no real assets are going to buy them is a fantasy.

I would suggest that it's roughly as silly as saying pretty soon all the millenials are going to be driving 5 and 7 series BMWs. Not unless those cars come down in price by 80%-90% or everyone somehow magically gets rich AND there's no inflation.

Bay area house prices are not proportional (even discarding the effects of higher marginal tax rates). 150K salary for a million dollar house is not easy; 150k house on 50k salary (and a 3x salary difference is a bit of an exaggeration, while house prices are not) is much more plausible.

I bought a foreclosed 70k house in Miami in 2009 (4br - 2.5bth, now worth 150k - rented and cash flow positive) I've lived in the bay area since 2012 It hurts knowing I could buy two or three more houses with what I pay in rent here, similar houses in the bay cost 600-700k yes it really is a 5-10x difference #sigh

Last I lived in flyover country, I bought a $162,000 house on a $55,000 salary, and owned a car a bit more expensive than a Leaf.

So yes, it does work. And that's the owning a house case. There's also the "renting an apartment at a modern complex" case.

"In the "flyover country" where you DON'T get big city salaries"

Sure you do. I could expect at absolute most a 25% pay raise if I moved to CA. Its not worth it. The ratio in cost of living might be 10:1 but the ratio in income is more like 5:4 or so.

you dont need a garage, you can just have a lead, my friend was doing it like that in london 5 years ago! just had a lead coming out of his house onto the street!

I guess you have missed the big population trends of the last few decades. More and more people are moving to inner city apartments every one of which is not designed with electric cars in mind. And with property prices reaching astronomical amounts in many places e.g. Australia, UK, Europe, HK, SG the lure of cheaper but smaller apartments is only going to grow.

For me this is is one of the big advantages of hydrogen cars i.e. you use them exactly the same as your existing car.

It is massively cheaper to solve the problem of extending electricity 5 meters from the inside of the apartment building to the parking lot than it would be to build a global hydrogen distribution network.

You're missing the point. Who is going to pay to extend electricity into each car bay of an apartment building car park ? It's a significant cost that any property developer is not currently doing (they clearly see a weak market) nor likely to do for the handful of people who will request it.

Much of a future hydrogen distribution network already exists (we have transportation companies, gas stations etc) all of whom would be more than happy to add a new technology. Just like they have done already with LPG.

Most apartment buildings didn't have A/C when they were built either. The building I'm in is nearly 120 years old. At some point the landlord ran extra cabling and dedicated outlets so we could have window air conditioning. I imagine that was as expensive or more than car charging stations would be.

The market demanded it, landlords provided it. Keep in mind landlords are in the business of finding ways to deploy capital to increase their rental incomes. That's why they upgrade kitchens and floors - because they can raise rent. Much like air conditioning once was, having an electric car charger certainly seems like an amenity you can charge for.

It's not massively cheaper to solve the problem of the building itself requiring some multiple of its current electrical service supply once all the tenants want to start charging their cars there.

I agree there's a problem here, but the trend you point out is probably breakeven with respect to gas/electric. Many people how move into a dense city have no car at all.

(Those who do have more money and often garage their car, so they'll add charging to long term garages as demand increases.)

Yes. People moving to inner city apartments are dropping the car altogether, so for them what matters is what's most convenient for car-rental companies when they occasionally rent a car....

In an environment where people only use cars for special trips, not for day-to-day activities, the longer range of gasoline might end up being a bigger advantage than it is for current-day Americans.

>>For me this is is one of the big advantages of hydrogen cars i.e. you use them exactly the same as your existing car.

Except that you can't, because hydrogen tanks can store very little of it(a lead 70kg bottle can store only 1kg of hydrogen), and hydrogen slowly leaks out through any container you could possibly put it into, so after 4-5 weeks of the car standing still you have an empty tank.

Electric Car-sharing, just like how since you don't have a garage you would use normal car sharing (Zipcar).

If you live in the SF Bay Area: https://us.drive-now.com/

If you own a Tesla Model S and live near a supercharger network, charging is not an issue. Over 8,000 miles in my Model S, all powered exclusively by the superchargers, free of charge.

Note: I live in an apartment less than 2 miles from the nearest supercharger in Los Angeles and only 8 miles from work. So, the range is never a problem.

Tesla Superchargers are not the solution for this, as they are simply not designed for such use. They were built to help with long range destinations.

There are cases where users, (ab)using them as you do, got a request to reduce their usage. I guess you didn't trigger any flags.

Electric car infrastructure is "cheap" (compared to say hydrogen stations or even gas stations). Chargers will be everywhere by the time 20% of the car market is electric. I wouldn't worry too much about it if you're not planning to get an EV in the next 10 years anyway.

Not only that, but commutes > the range of the car make it impossible as well. The only thing stopping me from buying a leaf is that my commute is 50 miles, so if I don't find a charging station near work, I don't get home.

For passenger capacity, note that most car owners utilize 1/4 or 1/5 of their available seats.

Yet while all 3 of my vehicles (2 cars and a motorcycle) are 2-seaters, virtually all of my driving is solo (and I'm not even talking about commuting -- I'm primarily a bicycle commuter. Okay, my other 3 vehicles have 1 seat and 2 pedals).

The "average" or typical use case is not how people choose their vehicle. They choose it based on the uncommon use case. The executive buys himself a Porsche not because it will get him anywhere any faster, or because she really knows how to drive it, but because it projects an image of what she could do. The SUV is sold on the promise of rugged camping trips and dodging boulders to transport the children safely back home under conditions that can best be described as "apocalypse". Hell, I have many car enthusiast friends who have bought practical, boring cars because they've got that 3rd row seating for hauling their kids' friends.... before they even have kids!

For 99% of use cases, yes, the electric car is cheaper and more convenient. But my next car will be a comfortable, powerful, gas-powered car with AWD. Why? Because today's weight (and efficiency) penalty for AWD is basically zero, and on the one trip to Tahoe a year where chain control is in effect, I won't have to freeze my digits off trying to fit chains (or, worse, get taken out by a vehicle careening out of control in the snow).. and I won't have to hunt down nonexistent charging infrastructure where I don't have a driveway, let alone a garage. It will be for the 2 roadtrips I take a year. It will be because, while the electric car is better for MOST of my driving, it doesn't accommodate the rare circumstances we really buy vehicles for -- Because the electric car isn't enough better at the 99% of use cases to make up for its virtual uselessness at the 1%.

I love electric cars. I've driven the i3, various hybrids, and the Tesla Roadster and Model S. Some day I will own an electric car, but I wouldn't surprise if the tipping point takes quite a bit longer to trigger than he expects.

Peoples choice is guided by what they percieve they will use the car for. So you buy a minivan if you have children, because there will be situations where you need the space, if you have more than 2 children that makes sense. And as you mention, you buy it for the two roadtrips. I know people who spend a crapton on an station wagon two classes larger "because they need to move shit every now and then", completly ignoring that if they just choose the car that fit their every day needs, they can rent the car they need for special occasions and come our way ahead financially.

Many people own 2 cars as well, and it just makes sense to at least make one of them an electric. That is in my opinion will be the tipping point where there is enough demand to heavily invest in proper charging network.

So we just need those fast-charge batteries that garner a press release every couple of months.

Surely they're just around the corner!