This is really not KTM, yet I could reisist the urge to ask you, why you don't consider EVs in rural areas to be practical?
I would have assumed that practicality would be a result of how often and for how long you need you veichle to be stationary in order to have it in working order. Charging/fuelling would be a bis part of that. Changing parts, upgrading a smaller.
Cities are a lot more densely populated, that have more facilities on hand within a closer radius. It is easy to add infrastructure close to where there is already plenty. At the present, in rural areas of the US for example, the infrastructure for EV's, and by that I mean charging stations, is non existent. Contrast that to petrol stations on almost every street.
Now, if you want to build a petrol station in the middle of nowhere, you can. The only requirement is having a tanker come and fill up the tanks. For EV, you have to physically connect to a grid, which may or may not be able to take the demands required. There are numerous cases of commercial properties being told that the grid cannot physically supply the energy they are requesting.
When I refer to rural, I am predominantly talking about things like pickup trucks that spend their entire life towing. heavy duty vehicles and the like. I have a relatively small trailer I pull for my racing, and a track 5 hrs away that requires a fill up each end, would require 5 of 6 recharging stops with, for example, an F150 Lighting (EV), each taking approx an hour. That adds 5 hours at least to my trip, whereas 2 refills for petrol cost me 15 mins.
Rural is not just having longer distances between charging. In the city I live in, there are probably less than a dozen charging spots for EV, and about 50% of those are private ones in employer car parks.
I for one don't see EVs being marketed as 100% green, only greener. Also, the batteries last longer, 12 year old
But they are, there is even a term for it. ZEV (Zero Emission Vehicle). You see it as badges on the rear of many electric vehicles. Also, 12 years is not acceptable to many people, for a car that costs $50 grand. Both my cars are 10 years old, and I expect to get another 10 out of them and they will likely be replaced due to body corrosion, not because the engine has failed.
Of course, I acknowledge that battery technology has (and will continue) to improve, but they are still not at the level they need to be for the cost of them.
1st gen Tesla S cars are sold used, with over 300km range, with original batteries. The batteries also have an aftermarket that isn't comparable to an ICE.
I'm not denying there isn't but for every EV with 300k on the original battery, there is multiple more that fail in less than a 3rd of that. Not to sound aloof, but I work in the automotive industry and am aware of the current status of EV's.
When I charge my car on the grid, I pay for it. It's cheaper than fueling, not free.
Yes, and when they have a monopoly on the market, your recharging cost will exceed refueling.
If we only can make the storage and transport of energy more efficient, that would be wonderful. The same way you can take petrol, and move it around the globe and spend its innate energy somewhere else. We do have enough sun, wind, water to make power us, not to speak of the power beneath the crust...
Agreed about the power transport and storage.
At the end of the day, governments talk about green energy but their primary concern is green only (i.e. money). MIT released a study about solar energy and it included an quote about how "The problem with solar is that panels generate a lot of electricity in the middle of sunny days , frequently in excess of what is required, driving down prices"
Translate that to "We can't monopolise the sun or make it scarcer than it is, to drive up prices"
