[aashishnb]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Interesting trend! Of course, the Americans, the greatest nation in the world as they like to see them, still has the world worse home electrical power. I mean 110-120VAC! Not many countries still running 110/120VAC.

I think even in India, most connections, even for smaller apartments are 3-phase. Most appliances are at 220-240v IMO.
We do have progressive charging for residential users, where the cost per unit of power goes up in slabs as your consumption increases.

[tirumalavoleti]

As OP mentioned at the end, PHEV is the perfect solution till the battery charging evolves, to have almost same charging speed as that of filling fuel in IC

PHEV makes the cities less pollute due to the best in city pure EV range

PHEV makes the highway drives and long cruises with out having range anxiety

[Jas21]

Originally Posted by Rahulkool

If i change headline, it would say 80% of electric car buyers are sticking with their cars, i think for a new and massively different tech, this is a very good percentage.

This is exactly what I wanted to say. Its a damn good percentage in favor of Electric Cars.
Personally, I believe that Hybrids with better Battery power would be a better solution, though (Unless we move away completely from Thermal Power plants).

[BlackPearl]

The pace at which battery technology is progressing, there is absolutely no point in surveying the customers from 2012 to 2018 and then debating about it in the middle of 2021. I am sure the result will be very different if they do the same survey now onwards.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by RahulNagaraj

The time required in filling up a vehicle with a full tank of fuel is significantly less compared to charging the batteries of an EV.

Its a bit odd that we are seeing this pattern. You'd think that with an EV, a car that will never have repairs or a level of maintenance to be carried out, compared to a gas engine car should easily win this race.

It is this (quoted section) and the prohibitive entry cost of going EV. Not everyone can afford a high range Tesla. Everything else will give you no more than 200 real world miles on a charge. The USA is also one market where vehicles travel a lot. Its not uncommon to find 100k miles clocked on 5 to 7 year old (or less) gas engine cars. I think I am being conservative with that number. Its probably a lot higher. With this sort of mileage, you most certainly will find an EV a pain to run, even if you have access to a rapid charger and there are lots of these spread out in the United States.

[Pacific]

Not surprising at all, post the initial euphoria, EV owners are realizing that its sensible to spend less time at the pump rather then at a charging station.

As per this article, many Tesla owners are adding a RAV4 Prime as their second vehicle.

https://www.torquenews.com/1083/tesl...ids-here-s-why

Check out this long-term ownership review of RAV4 Prime to know more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g3MZwMN2iE

[AnnaRocks]

If 1 in 5 is the ratio in the US with their level of infrastructure, I wonder what the scenario would be in India.

Time for Carmakers in India to up the Hybrid game, that appears to be one of the better solutions.

[swunkjyn]

I am presuming that this will normalize in the coming 5 years or so or maybe even more. Petrol pumps or Gas stations have been here since decades and so is their reach even in extremely rural areas. Maybe, once the number of EV cards increased, we'll see charging stations almost everywhere (Parking/Malls etc). This could be one of the reasons that EV cars have not kicked off to a great start in India.

[GTO]

And imagine, this is in the USA! What about India? Long way off. We will see more electric models being offered in the coming 5 years here, but the initial adopters will all be either people who have a home charging spot available (no street parking owners) or diehard tree-huggers. Of course, after a decade, range & charging concerns will be a thing of the past with 600 - 800 km battery ranges becoming common, and a charging infrastructure (with the blessings of the government of course).

Back to the USA, here are some observations based on my reading @ Reddit & Jalopnik:

• Tesla owners have it best, thanks to the company's wide supercharging network.

• The happiest EV owners are still those who can charge their cars at home.

• Apartment owners even in the USA find it very challenging to charge their cars. There is also the hassle of permissions from associations, feasibility of connections, fees etc.

• The VW-backed Electrify America (open to all EV car brands) charging network is quite patchy. Network is nowhere as good as Tesla's, stations have just a handful of charging outlets, there are software gremlins (charging doesn't start or app not recognised) etc.

• Fuss-free road trip? A petrol car is still the best.

• Bad idea to go out for a road-trip on holiday weekends. Check the line out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1uFudf37JU

As an aside, I am currently renovating my driveways and got 3 EV charging points installed for my own (future) EVs and all the media cars coming my way.

[V.Narayan]

The points raised in the survey are the kind of issues we should expect in the early days of this transition from one source of energy to another. I'm sure in the 1890 to 1915 phase when cars and horse drawn carriages co-existed in equal numbers our great grand parents generation must have complained about lack of petrol pumps, inadequate repair facilities, cars breaking down ever so often, missing that horse smell, missing the clippety-clop of the horse etc. Conceptually speaking same thing repeating itself 125 years later. A little bit of this we witnessed when emails first started to proliferate in the 1990s.

When I moved into an apartment from a bungalow in 2013 I had the builder install two 15 amp points at my parking spots in the basement knowing that EVs would come one day and then I may not have the access to get this done. I'm sure in the next few years when I buy my first EV that foresight will come in handy.

EV charging points will mushroom in the next few years at parking lots, malls, and what have you. Never under estimate the tug of demand-supply. 15 to 20 years ago we used to lament about how ever in a poor country like India would lakhs of kms of fibre cables be laid for the internet connections to each home. There used to be talk that in India only a wireless connection infrastructure can get put up etc. And today less than a generation later we have fibre going into about 50% of villages even.

I am very confident EV charging points will become ubiquitous in 5 to 7 years time.

[Rahul Rao]

I feel that plug in electric vehicles with battery range over 100 km should be the transition to EV's.
Considering one year of my pre lock down runs, I have averaged about 125 km a day 46000km 1 Mar19 to 1 Mar 20 . Of this about 20 days a month I have done between 25 km and 150 km runs.
In the entire period there was 1 x 900 km round trip (Akola) over two days, 26 X 700 km round trips (Belgaum) on same day, 1 X 480 km round trip (Aurangabad) and lot of 300-350 km round trips (Mumbai)
Except for the Akola trip all others are doable in an EV. The hotel I stop for dinner while returning from Belgaum has 4 charging points, I just have to stop for breakfast at the same hotel. Tata power has three locations in Ahmednagar. I can arrange charging at my destination which are factories where I spend between 4 and 6 hrs.
Still I will prefer a plug in electric vehicle and make minimum use of the engine.

Rahul

[veedub89]

An electric car as your sole vehicle just doesn't work.
It doesn't work in the US, specifically California in this case even despite the fact that California probably has the highest number of electrics in the US.

To compare it with the infrastructure in Europe, again not as many chargers as in the US. Especially if you consider Tesla's massive supercharger network.

For India, I have mentioned this before and firmly believe that we are about 10 years off from adopting electric cars or even considering them to be honest.
If the government really is serious about switching over to electric then they must also consider the load of charging these vehicles and the impact it will have on our current distribution grid.

[srini1785]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Interesting trend! Of course, the Americans, the greatest nation in the world as they like to see them, still has the world worse home electrical power. I mean 110-120VAC! Not many countries still running 110/120VAC.

Regardless, your home electrical power is a factor. Here in the Netherlands everybody has 220VAC/50Hz. Most home have a 20 or 25Amp connection, one or three phase.

From a purely technical view point why is that a shortcoming?. The US, If I am not wrong has a L1-N-L2 type connection. So its 110V AC between L1-N and between L1 and L2 you still get 230V AC. Fast chargers usually make no difference between 110V AC or 230V AC. Its the power that is delivered in the shortest possible time to the battery which matters. This means that your fast charger supply should come from a separate line with higher capacity in terms of KWHr as compared to your home supply. The US, I am sure has one the best Power grids in the world.

[QuentinTino]

This reminds me of a road trip my friend took from Delhi to Dehradun recently in his Nexon EV. Poor guy took almost 16 HOURS to cover a 240km journey. Since there were no “fast chargers” on the way, he had to stop twice to charge up his EV- once at a local Tata dealership (which didn’t even have a wall charger) and once at a local dhaba, using a TMT bar and metal wire for Earthing! Still he had to push his car for the last few metres as it ran out of juice *just* before reaching. Moral of the Story for him - NEVER think of an out station journey in an EV in India. Says he won’t take it out of the NCR at least for the next 3-4 years now till there’s some charging infrastructure.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by srini1785

From a purely technical view point why is that a shortcoming?. The US, If I am not wrong has a L1-N-L2 type connection. So its 110V AC between L1-N and between L1 and L2 you still get 230V AC. Fast chargers usually make no difference between 110V AC or 230V AC its the power that is delivered in the shortest possible time to the battery which matters. This means that your fast charger supply should come from a separate line with higher capacity in terms of KWHr as compared to your home supply. The US, I am sure has one the best Power grids in the world.

Actually, the US has one of the worst power grids in the western world, although it varies state from state. It has lots of power outages. In our four years living in Kansas City we had more power outages than in forty years living in western Europe.

https://www.popsci.com/story/environ...-power-storms/

Lots of their infrastructure is very outdated and lets not even begin to discuss the environmental aspects of this outdated infrastructure.

There is a fundamental difference between 110VAC and 220VAC for normal home consumers. At 110VAC, for the same power draw you will need double the current. It is only partly offset by a slightly higher frequency.

Double the current means thicker wire or you your losses will become higher.

Also, DC conversion at a lower voltage are less efficient than at a higher voltage. So just about any device which has a AC to DC convertor (many many home appliances) is just less efficient.

One of the arguments for 110VAC is that it is considered safer in case of accidental touching a live wire.

Whether you actually have one or three phase depends on what kind of electricity connection you have. Here in the Netherlands you have either one or three phase and also a current rating. Both these aspects determine your fixed monthly cost.

Going to a three phase connection is much more expensive. Upping the current rating for either single or three phase is also much more expensive.

My point is that it is an aspect that I think is often overlooked when discussing EV home charging. Your home power infrastructure needs to be suitable for the type of charging you want. Depending on what you have as an installation there can be considerable one off and continuous higher expenses just to upgrade your electrical connection.

Going by your suggestion, an additional power line is not necessarily a very efficient perse. If anything it means you would need a second meter as well. Depending on how your electrical charges are build up it could be a very expensive options.

Jeroen