The points about charging apply to any electric vehicle, though, and that's where I have trouble seeing electric cars really taking off. The Tesla approach seems great if your only use case is up to 100 mile drives from home to somewhere else and back again the same day to a home where you can easily plug the car in (essentially the typical car commuter). That's got to be a reasonable market now, but I remember seeing a recent article about a strong trend (in younger generations) towards living close to work and not driving or at least driving much less. I definitely fall into that category, and while I do have a car, I only use it on weekends to take trips out of town -- generally to places out in the woods where there will never be charging stations and often far enough that I wouldn't trust a 200 mile range. Unless battery technology gets way better, I just don't see electric-only working for that kind of use case. The Volt makes a lot more sense to me since you always have a backup plan.
Regarding charging stations for urban dwellers, my building (like many new projects in the Seattle area, as I understand it) has a few parking spots that are with charging stations. I don't see them in use now, but if electric cars actually do take off, people are going to be fighting over those few spots.
According to NHTS data, the mean Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) per day for Americans is 33 miles. The median is 22 miles. With numbers this low, and steadily decreasing, electric vehicles are viable for nearly all drivers. When small electric cars are comparable priced (taking into account lower cost of ownership) to their gas-burning competitors, things will really start to change.
> With numbers this low, and steadily decreasing, electric vehicles are viable for nearly all drivers.
I guess I should go look at the actual NHTS data, but mean and median might not actually support this assertion. They're way too generalized. As an example: over the past few years, I've driven 4000-5000 miles per year. You could express that as 11-14 miles per day, but that's pretty misleading. I might only drive 40 or 50 days a year, so in reality I'm driving an average of 80-125 miles per day. Not a good fit at all for today's electrics.
The points about charging apply to any electric vehicle, though, and that's where I have trouble seeing electric cars really taking off. The Tesla approach seems great if your only use case is up to 100 mile drives from home to somewhere else and back again the same day to a home where you can easily plug the car in (essentially the typical car commuter). That's got to be a reasonable market now, but I remember seeing a recent article about a strong trend (in younger generations) towards living close to work and not driving or at least driving much less. I definitely fall into that category, and while I do have a car, I only use it on weekends to take trips out of town -- generally to places out in the woods where there will never be charging stations and often far enough that I wouldn't trust a 200 mile range. Unless battery technology gets way better, I just don't see electric-only working for that kind of use case. The Volt makes a lot more sense to me since you always have a backup plan.
Regarding charging stations for urban dwellers, my building (like many new projects in the Seattle area, as I understand it) has a few parking spots that are with charging stations. I don't see them in use now, but if electric cars actually do take off, people are going to be fighting over those few spots.