So me and my gf are thinking of getting a 2024 Mini cooper electric (because they're cute!)or a GWM Ora but we won't have access to a residential charging since we live in an apartment. Would it be doable? What do you guys think?

Living in the Midwest, we’re just now beginning to see a decent number of EVs out in town.

To our friends, my wife and I - who each drive an electric car - are confusing at best. Why would we give up the freedom a gas car offers?

Anyway, with very few exceptions, we’ve never had to wait in line to charge on road trips. We’ve been through Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee, etc.

While in Cincinnati over the Thanksgiving weekend, every stall at an EA charging station was full with at least one car waiting for each one.

While waiting sucks - and the 8-12 Gen 2 Superchargers next door were no help - I was thrilled to see so many different EVs on the road. Bolts, Rivians, lots of Equinoxes, Mach-e’s.

So as long as they keep building the stations - and upgrade more to charge two cars at once - things are looking up!

Not interested in a political discussion or whether or not Musk is a bad person. With the expected headwinds from the incoming Trump administration, what do you think EV adoption will be like over the next 5 years? Do you think there Is enough momentum that any roadblocks won’t matter and EV sales will continue to increase? Do you think there will be continued investment in the charging infrastructure to make charging as common as hitting a gas station?

My house is 2000 sqft and has 100 AMPs total. We don't have much high energy appliances other than the standard AC, fridge, and washing machine. With this in mind, can we support a NEMA 14-15?

Wondering how this works because it's not really making sense for me.

I know for the used EV tax credit vehicle has to be 2 years old and under 25k

I see a used 2021 Mach E for sale with a list price of $21,800 and dealer specifically writes "advertised list price includes EV tax credit"

That basically means before the tax credit the car is $25,800 and wouldn't qualify

What kind of shenanigans are these dealers pulling?

I see another with a list price of $24k and again the listing says "advertised price includes ev tax credit", so essentially car is $28k and should not be eligible

Thoughts?

I’ve been using an Electrify America (EA) charging station that originally had four posts: two rated at 350 kW, one at 150 kW, and one that was a 150 kW/Level 2 combo. Nearly every week, one or more of the chargers were out of service. Recently, they replaced all the chargers with new models that are supposed to support 350 kW. Despite the upgrade, I’m still seeing poor performance. Today, I’m testing one of the new chargers, and it hasn’t gone above 60 kW—right now, it’s sitting at 51 kW.

After the first week of consistent issues with EA, I got a Tesla Supercharger membership and started using their network instead. Every time I charge at a Supercharger, even when most of the stalls are full, I consistently get speeds over 70 kW.

What I don’t understand is why EA charges more for their service, given the limited availability, frequent downtime, and slow speeds. Their product feels so inferior compared to Tesla’s Superchargers, which are more reliable and deliver better performance. The price EA demands just doesn’t seem justified. Anyone else feel the same?

There was a recent post about someone saying how much better life was since they started charging at home overnight. Some people in the post scoffed about how blase the post was, and many others pontificated that eventually the challenges would subside and everyone will be driving EVs in a decade or two. I'm not sure that there is a real solution to the logistical challenges of charging time for people who cannot charge at home or at work. (FYI, I worked at the National Renewable Energy Lab for several years. Early EV days many really smart scientist coworkers were saying that recharging is a non-issue b/c we are just going to pull into a "battery station" and lift out a discharged one and plop in a charged one. HAHAHAHA. So before you say that something is "in principle solved" please check the numbers and make sure it makes sense)

My experience: I have an EV (Mini Countryman SE) for a little over a month now, and our other car is ICE. I have a long commute of 60-80 mi/day, and a free L2 charger at main office and essentially no electricity at 2nd site. I alternate between locations. My wife has 3 mi/day commute. We chose the car knowing we would have to trade off on it for charging and lease-allowed miles. Overall, we have been really happy with the car. Even though I have to be super aware of my driving habits, I mostly charge L2 at work (can always top up to 80% the days I'm there), and I recover 10-15% overnight with L1.

Honesty, I don't care about the $/mile, as long as it's not too much more expensive than gas for our Outback. However, if I had to go out of my way to charge the car on a routine basis, I would just not use it. I have never yet had to use a public charger, but every EV owner that I have talked to says public chargers are a zoo. I've seen a few posts on here about "that one glorious time that people actually showed some unexpected humanity at the charger". Sure, some grocery stores have a few, but what if you have an hour to do your grocery shopping, and all of them are full? Do you wait 5 minutes for one to free up? Do you run into the store and half fill your cart and shove it in a corner to come back to plug in your car?

A couple weeks ago I was bicycling through a dense neighborhood in Denver. Old houses with exclusively overcrowded on-street parking. I've lived in these kinds of neighborhoods before. If you are lucky, you get to park within 100ft of your home, but likely you frequently park a block away. I was SHOCKED at how many EVs I saw parked in this hood. Maybe many have chargers at work, or are just visiting. Recently I talked to a guy with an EV that has to park on street. He told me that he found a charger at a nearby highschool that he uses. I'm guessing that he slips in at night, lets it charge a bit, then goes back to grab it a few hours later. What a garbage lifestyle to deal with. What if the school gets tired of strangers parking in their lots and fences it or tows them?

So take the hypothetical EV owner that cannot charge at home, and cannot charge at work. I only see three options here:

1. Drive few enough miles commuting that you only have to charge 1x/week and do so at a place you are already going (eg the gym or grocery store). Personally, I would have to charge every 2 days, and I don't ever go to any destinations on a regular basis that have chargers that I am aware of. I even walk to the grocery store and mine doesn't have chargers, so I'd ironically have to drive out of my way to get groceries. All this also assumed that there are enough chargers on site that you don't have to waste extra time waiting for one to free up.
2. Find a place near home or work with an L1 or L2 charger. Now there might be issues of being allowed to use it. You also have to get your car there, walk to your destination/home, and walk back to pick it up. Probably 20-30 minutes if you are lucky? You going to do that 2-3x/week?
3. There aren't any convenient neighborhood or destination chargers. You have to go specifically to fast chargers, hope you get a spot quickly, pay high prices, and sit in an uncomfortable car seat melting your brain on youtube or reddit or something.

The more inconvenient charging infrastructure is, the more you will be inclined to charge to higher %, thereby degrading your battery faster. The upshot is there is a very real logistical benefit to people who can charge at home and at work that is completely lost to many people, and the only solution I see is like 25-50% of parking spots at every storefront having chargers...a HUGE infrastructure undertaking. Convince me we are on track or there is another real solution.

Of course, there are non-fossil fuel options on the horizon, like Hydrogen and synth fuels that could be refilled instantly like gasoline, but we aren't there yet. I wonder if too many people believe erroneously that EVs are already solved or are the best solution, if that will prevent the investments that those other fields need to achieve viability.

Suppose there is a BEV with a 100kwh battery and a BEV with a 50kwh battery when the car is new with the same other conditions. (For simplicity's sake, let's assume that the vehicle weights are the same.)

If the battery capacity of the EV with the 100kwh battery is reduced to 80kwh after 50,000km, how much battery capacity is left in the car with the initial 50kwh battery?

The answer is 30kwh, and since the battery capacity has decreased by 20%, we tend to think it is 40kwh, but that is wrong.

Both are equally likely to decrease by 20kwh.

Let us assume that the capacity decreases by 1% each time the battery is completely used up from a full charge.

If a car with a 50kwh battery runs out of battery power, the capacity will decrease by 0.5kwh at 1% of 50kwh.

What about a car with a 100kwh battery, which runs the same distance with a 100kwh battery, but the battery is only reduced to 50%. Therefore, wear is also reduced by half. In other words, 0.5% of 100kwh is 0.5kwh less.

Thus, if the conditions are the same, the battery capacity will decrease in proportion to the distance traveled, and the decrease in capacity will not depend on the initial capacity.

This is a problem for EVs with low battery capacity, especially PHEVs and REVs.

A BEV with a 60KWH battery is still a BEV even if the battery capacity is reduced to 50KWH.

If a 10KWH PHEV goes down to 1KWH, it is no longer a PHEV.

From the consumer's point of view, when buying a used PHEV, one should pay more attention to the reduction of battery capacity than BEVs. Also, when buying a new car, one should consider the possibility that battery capacity will decrease in the future.

Manufacturers are taking several measures to address this. Some PHEVs do not have fast charging, partly because they do not want to overload the battery.

Another measure is to use the engine for high-speed driving, even if the battery has remaining capacity.

This reduces the use of the battery.

Nevertheless, these measures reduce the advantages of EVs.

Although it may not be a solution, there are cars such as Toyota's that are excellent HVs even if they are no longer PHEVs due to the reduction in battery power.

Of course, the use of relatively large and durable batteries is a fundamental solution.

Interestingly, PHEVs, which at first glance tend to feel that they can be manufactured with relatively poor quality batteries, actually require more durability than BEVs in some respects.

This is one reason why PHEVs are not necessarily an easy extension of HEVs to build.

I'm in the market for a new car. I'd like to go electric. My husband has a 2024 X5 PHEV, and I've been really impressed. Our last several cars have been German and I'm generally happy with them.

In doing research, I read a lot of positive reviews of super cruise and wanted to try it out. I went to a Cadillac dealership and drove two Lyriqs and was pleasantly surprised. It was both comfortable and luxurious, and the supercruise honestly outperformed the BMW driver assist hands-free mode (imo). I was impressed by automatic lane changing without requiring my input, and it was overall a great driving experience.

Then I connected my iPhone through Apple CarPlay. And that's when I became concerned. The display of my CarPlay took up very little real estate on the big dashboard. It was not optimized. It was hard to see, and unnecessarily wasted a lot of screen real estate. I went home to do some research before going further with the Lyriq, and I discovered that they will be getting rid of CarPlay altogether in future models.

I can't imagine why I would want to give up my own options. And it's such a disappointment to disqualify super cruise vehicles. I've also written the dealership letting them know how disappointed I am that they didn't even mention CarPlay going away, after we discussed it explicitly on my test drive.

Further, and hopefully just incidentally, both of the Lyriqs that I test drove yesterday experienced connectivity issues with the built-in Google interface and were unable to perform navigation while I was test driving.

Bought my first EV last weekend, a 2022 VW id.4. I love it, but the charging cord that came with it is confusing. I could level one charge with the two foot extension cord that comes with it for a 15amp plug, but I have a 30amp RV receptacle at my house and I'd like to take advantage of the faster charging.

Without the two foot extension, the charging cord has a 20amp plug with one horizontal and one vertical blade. I've found adapters on Amazon that go from a 20amp to the 30amp RV receptacle, but the vertical and horizontal blades are all on the incorrect sides (swapped).

Any thoughts?

I rent a house, not sure landlord will allow home charger installation so….is it a must?

I would have the portable charger that comes with the car or nearby petrol station for fast chargers

Assuming the GOP manages to repeal US federal tax credits sometime in 2025, is it safe to assume that most likely the tax changes wouldn't take effect until 2026 given when previous tax changes have taken effect? And similarly, any credit applied at the point of sale before the repeal is passed couldn't be clawed back in any way?

Hello, i am thinking about starting a youtube channel on ev news and related subjects surrounding ev cars.

I love in the land of evs, but want to report about the global scene.

So what are some go to resources and websites and so on that i can use as a source and pick up on the latest news.

So i would be grateful if you could point me to the sites you guys use or i should look into.

Thanks.

I don't have a charger at home, so I pay 300 yen (less than 2 Euros or USD) for 30 minutes of quick charging at the mall. But this info is useless to anyone seeking information on a purchase or charging costs outside of Japan.

Car costs, brand and model availability, charging speeds, number of AC phases, and even battery sizes (in the same car model) are completely different in each country.

I suggest we write the country name in the titles to avoiding having to read through a whole post before realizing it doesn't apply to where we are. Also to avoid the many posts where each reply seems conflicting with each other, or even nonsense (like suggesting a BYD to an American) because everyone assumes OP is talking about their own country.

Shouldn't having two separate charging ports reduce the charging time by half. Is there any flaw in this system apart from requiring extra charger.

Apologies for the ignorance, I’m just trying to learn. Sorry if it’s been asked before.

Once the full electric range of a PHEV is depleted, does it default to a traditional hybrid state? A mild hybrid? Or just full ICE only?

I’m struggling to figure out how a theoretical PHEV would compare to the comparable traditional hybrid of the same model, and if the mpg once the electric range is depleted is better, worse, or same.

Been trying to figure this out for a while, thank you !