Car dealers say they can’t sell EVs, tell Biden to slow their rollout

boem@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 549 points –
Car dealers say they can’t sell EVs, tell Biden to slow their rollout
arstechnica.com
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Even with an outlet who wants to slow charge a plug-in EV? The infrastructure isn't there and the cars are too expensive.

Slow charge is probably fine for a lot of folks. If you have a 240 mile battery range, travel 30 miles in a day and charge 80 miles overnight, you are at full charge from 0 in about 5 days.

No plug at all though means you don't charge at all, and commercial fast charging isn't that much cheaper than gas.

commercial fast charging isn't that much cheaper than gas.

I could be wrong as I have no experience charging an electric vehicle, but my understanding was that it was far cheaper to charge an electric car battery than it is to fill a tank of gas. Talking like $3.50 vs. $60 (both rough estimates, the exact numbers themselves aren't the point, and we can look them up if needed) for full charge vs. full tank.

Maybe I'm wrong, and the "commercial" bit in there makes a big difference (as it usually does).

Oh yep, not the same person here but price varies widely.

In my apartment complex, we have Blink network EV chargers at $0.03/kWh which is a crazy price. The complex next door's Blink chargers charges $0.50ish/kWh (both of those are Level 2) and our apartment rates (for the hypothetical out-the-window Level 1 charging) is somewhere $0.14-0.18/kWh.

DC fast charging for trips will likely will charge closer to that $0.50/kWh mark depending on the location and will be a problem for those who don't have lower-cost charging at home.

That's a big range for "home" (but still commercial) charging and depending on the efficiency of the vehicle, the cost per mile will vary. The range will likely be around 2 mi/kWh to 4 mi/kWh.

They should make batteries that swap out completely so you can load a fully charged one in in a few seconds and let your old one charge while you're off driving somewhere else. Or you just exchange the battery permanently like with some propane tanks.

Nah, more like swappable cells. If Battery energy density was good enough for what you're suggesting, no one would have range anxiety and would be eager to buy EVs. Those batteries are huge.

Most people who have an EV now are slow charging at home daily. And seldom need to use a public charger for their daily driving because of that daily overnight slow charging.

Where I'm at, most people with an EV are getting priority parking at the grocery store, workplace, and shopping centers, charging while while they work or shop, and never think much about charging at all unless they're taking a road trip.