Is The Penny Dropping......?

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98dzyy850jo

are people finally realising that electric cars are not viable for most? They are great if you live near work and never go very far but the infrastructure is still a joke if you are proper road user.

Have we reached the point where those that were ever going to buy in have now done so?

[brainiac]

They're useless in large countries like the USA.  Imagine if you wanted to drive from Houston to San Fransisco, or similar long journey

[ToraToraTora]

they are pretty useless in small countries too.

[youngmafbog]

The battery tech n4eds to be much better - and cheaper.

As I have said before this whole thing needs to be a 50 year project so we can bring all along for the ride.  excluding the poor is not acceptable.

[Old_Geezer]

They are an attempt to try to be seen to do something despite it not being a reasonable alternative. They aren't great in all sorts of ways. The sooner they find an alternative strategy, the better.

[youngmafbog]

I think they could be, but its no good chrging down the road until you know the direction.  At the  moment we just have the NTSC and we need the PAL.

[10ClarionSt]

EV's are just for posers and show-boaters. They're useless.

[youngmafbog]

One of my SiL (Young man of 30) has one - a Mustang. He has to travel a fair bit and its useless, he pinches my daughters KUGA. 

He wont be buying another apparenty.

[Canary42]

I think your saturation point remark is indeed quite plausible. A major technological breakthrough is required before the markets boom. 

Perhaps a recharge on the move with cables (or whatever) in the road (similar to the old steam locomotives picking up water from mid-track troughs) is an answer, but this of course would require major changes to the road infrastructure (similar to the original telephone cable upheaval to footpaths).  

[Atheist]

Parhaps downhill runs or deceleration/braking could be used to recharge batteries on the run. That probably happens already, I suppose.

[ToraToraTora]

I'm glad you used the railway example canary because I think we will end up with car versions of the deisel electric trains. Not deisel of course but a small petrol engine on board that only charges the batteries when needed. That way things like "range anxiety" can be eased and more people will be confident in using them. They can charge when the opportunity arises and won't be totally useless when there is no opportunity.

[Atheist]

In other words, hybrid cars.

[barry1010]

Talking of electric vehicles I blame the current government for this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8n3n62wq4o

[barry1010]

Some friends of mine live on an electric powered narrowboat, that uses a similar system to that, TTT.  It has a diesel powered generator that charges the batteries when necessary.