15 July 2022

U.S. electric car sales reach favorable tipping point


As reported by Bloomberg:
The US is the latest country to pass what’s become a critical EV tipping point: 5% of new car sales powered only by electricity. This threshold signals the start of mass EV adoption, the period when technological preferences rapidly flip, according to the analysis.

For the past six months, the US joined Europe and China — collectively the three largest car markets — in moving beyond the 5% tipping point. If the US follows the trend established by 18 countries that came before it, a quarter of new car sales could be electric by the end of 2025. That would be a year or two ahead of most major forecasts...

In the case of electric vehicles, 5% seems to be the point when early adopters are overtaken by mainstream demand. Before then, sales tend to be slow and unpredictable. Afterward, rapidly accelerating demand ensues.  It makes sense that countries around the world would follow similar patterns of EV adoption. Most impediments are universal: there aren’t enough public chargers, the cars are expensive and in limited supply, buyers don’t know much about them. Once the road has been paved for the first 5%, the masses soon follow.
More discussion and charts at the link re plug-in hybrids.  But here is a counterpoint from Ars Technica:
I'm increasingly convinced that EV adoption is going to run into real problems if we can't get a handle on charger reliability... A few weeks later, it was time to drive from DC to Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes region of New York, this time in a BMW iX. And despite plenty of planning, I still spent almost as much time stationary, arguing with charging machinery, as I did actually pulling electrons into the car's battery pack throughout the 600-mile journey.

At each charging stop, in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, I ran into problems. A five-minute wait to see if the car and charger would establish communications was invariably the case. Waiting 10 minutes was not uncommon. Even then, there was no time to relax; more than once, an error somewhere in the loop shut everything down after just a few kWh...

Then there was the problem of whether or not all of the chargers at a given location were even functional. At one EA station with a Plugshare rating of 9.8, two of four chargers were completely inoperable and a third was reduced to just 50 kW. Four days later, nothing had changed other than its Plugshare rating, which had increased by 0.2 points to the maximum score of 10, with a note in italics about the reduced-power machine...
I would welcome informed commentary from readers - especially owners of electric cars.  My current car is 12 years old, and I'll need to make a decision re replacement soon.

6 comments:

  1. I found this Ted lecture complicated the whole "electric" question in some useful ways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1E8SQde5rk&t=619s

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  2. The US is - as in so many fields - falling behind the rest of the world.

    Europe is much further with electric charging pumps. Gas stations there have realized that they better get on board. In the Netherlands, if you're the first on your block to buy an electric vehicle, the city will install a public charging point in your street. And there is a generic payment system for paying at electric charging points.

    Now, having said that, the infrastructure bill does have a lot of money to help the US get more electric charging points. I'm not sure how that's gonna work out. Locally here on the east coast, I see Sheetz installing Tesla charging points, and having generic charging poles as they turn more and more into European-style (and NJ turnplike-style) wayside restaurant stops.

    But what really needs to happen is federal or state rules that overrule HOA rules banning charging points, and rules that motivate condo's to install charging points. There is too much lethargy there.

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  3. As a Tesla owner, you have a choice between the reasonably good Supercharger network, or trying to use the non Tesla chargers which mostly don’t fit (Chademo or whatever it is called doesnt fit). i’ve only had one case where Tesla supercharger just utterly failed. The entire charging station of a at least a dozen chargers was out. And this station was on I5 in California, in the middle of nowhere. Chances are you are stuck until the power comes back on, With gas, you can still resort to manually pumping gas, maybe just a gallon, to get you on your way. That doesn't work with electric. There definitely needs to be improvements in reliability and back up plans. charging with a 110V plug gives you about 2 miles per hour of charging. That’s not an option on a road trip.

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  4. We owned a electric car, a Leaf, for several years. Our house is full solar, with enough panels to charge a car on top of other household needs. The car was great for trips around town and was low maintenance. Occasionally we ran into trouble with a charging station not being available when we were out. We traded in for a Prius but we are looking at reviews for electric hybrids that are safe and reliable for our next vehicle. There is just too much open desert where we live and we don't want to be in the middle of nowhere unable to charge.

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    Replies
    1. Perhaps some enterprising manufacturer will develop efficient rooftop solar panels for automobiles.

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