Why Prius suits us better than the Volt

How many miles did you put on Volt last year?

 

Usually there no power, just experience from renting two places.

 

Running electrical wiring is child's play for an electrician who typically hand this off to a helper. Lines will be added as needed (demand). Already EV owners are contacting hotels about charging and Tesla is working with forward thinking hotels to install chargers. Once business owners realize this is an opportunity to attract customers you'll see the change happen more quickly.

Here's a startup that specializes in apt/condo charging situations: EverCharge - Smart EV Charging for Apartments and Condominiums Something the market wouldn't have supported just a few short years ago.

 

i just run an extension cord out my window. no excuse for apartment dwellers not to plug in, now that they know the options.

 

Why would inductive charging be a game changer? If people can't afford the 5 seconds of time plugging in requires, then they should never leave the office in the first place. Set up a cot in their cubicle because those seconds are precious.

Of course, I'm being facetious. The average American spends over 5 hours a day watching TV. If they can't be bothered to spend 5 seconds plugging in, they don't deserve the privilege to drive in the first place.

The second half of your paragraph undermines the first half. You say plug-ins will always suffer 2 critical flaws.

1. Plug-ins will eventually be cheaper to purchase than petrol engine vehicles even without tax credits.
2. Infrastructure is being built to accommodate future transportation needs. This means charging will be available even to apartment dwellers.
3. Many people don't need a place to plug in at home to take advantage of electric propulsion. If my work offered a standard outlet to charge at, the Volt would easily satisfy my 14 mile round-trip commute. I wouldn't even need to charge at home.

 

Running a 100ft extension cord out my window would probably be my only option...

Maybe in a decade they would be cheaper, but the Infrastructure part of the equation suffers from the proverbial chicken and egg problem; it makes no sense to build out the infrastructure for EV cars, when they only make up a minuscule fraction of cars on the road, and people won't buy pure EV cars without the infrastructure in place. Hybrids have been on the road for nearly 20 years now, and still only make up around 3% of car sales, it's going to take a long while for EV cars to reach the same numbers. Americans are stubborn about their cars, it'll probably be decades before EV's are adopted by the masses...hopefully plug-in hybrids get there sooner.

Very few people have the option to plug for free at work...

 

they make them.

 

If you think gasoline will remain at $2/gallon in the US for decades, then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

Fuel prices, subsidies, and increasing environmental regulation will make hybrids, BEVs, and PHEVs commonplace at an ever accelerating rate.

 

The Saudi's seem to believe gas and oil prices will remain low for quite some time, and are fighting tooth and nail for marketshare. Gas won't be $2 forever, but it will be awhile before it reaches $4, and that seems to be the psychological barrier for Americans to adopt alt-fuel cars. - The US bet big on American oil and now the whole global economy is paying the price - Quartz

There's a growing backlash to subsidizing electric cars and even hybrids, amidst dwindling tax revenues; like it or not, less gas means less dollars for infrastructure, considering the gas tax pays for a significant portion of it. I do not put my faith on the whims of Government and a public hostile to pay any new taxes...

 

It's not that simple. Only so many amps are available per line. In most cases, just 1 vehicle maxes out the capacity.

There's the cost to install and the liability to cover. That gets messy.

It doesn't address the upset sometimes caused by other renters about you getting a dedicated spot in shared parking garages.

 

Yes running electric lines and sub-panels are simple for folks in the electrical trade. It's not rocket science like a hydrogen station quite literally is. Now costs? Yes that will always be an issue when dealing with any large scale project done by man. But this will be a relatively slow roll out. One that has already begun with legislation and new construction with EV charging in mind, etc.

 

The Volt vs Prius is a valid comparison? Both are hybrids -- they others are all electric. With my business -- I can't have the limited range with a true electric.

I have a home office and two vacation houses all are about 70 miles from one another -- so the Volt at 70 miles would be perfect. I'm waiting.

 

The Leaf does 100 miles... and the Bolt is supposed to go 200. Your wait should be brief.

That said, my Prius is the perfect travel vehicle, and a BEV would make the perfect 2nd vehicle for commuting and around town trips.

Most multi-vehicle homes with garages should be ideal for at least one of the vehicles to be electric only. I'm trying to convince my parents to buy a BEV, but they keep getting the Camry since their original 1996 one was so good.

 

It's case by case.

 

and many apt buildings may not allow it.

 

Oh absolutely. I think there are also impossible scenarios like, maybe, historic districts or designated landmark buildings where any changes are strictly regulated.

 

This is incorrect, on many levels.
Half the infrastructure for EVs is already in place (actually, more like 90%, or 95%) depending on how you want to measure it). When we bought our first EV, there were NO public charging options in our area. Yet we drove that vehicle year round, almost every day.
All we needed was our home outlet.
When taking trips, we took our reliable Prius.

Now, infrastructure for anywhere we have wanted to go in the last three years has been in place. We actually take fewer airline trips, replacing them with car trips.

Hybrids hit a plagues at about 3%.
EVs will far surpass that. I expect EVs to hit 10% before hybrids reach 5%.

 

In one case even parking lot was separated from the building by road. I'm sure there a trend to have chargers, but it not so simple. Even in my company before we moved to another building people competing for sockets. Ideally for my commute I need both chargers at home and at office. But with Prius I just get gas in 5 min, and do not care for 10-14 days.

May be the next 5 years I'll go for Prime, or something pure electric. If gas go over $5-6, then it'll be very stimulus.

 

The problem is not that people choose hybrid vs. ev, but they choose truck or suv.

 

I disagree. Having a choice of vehicles is not a problem.