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.
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.