Main character syndrome is odd. The way we increase EV adoption is by helping those who would easily transition to them do so. If someone’s in the minority of new car buyers and EV wouldn’t work for, cool, moving on to the next person who can upgrade for the planet and kiddos!
I’m really disappointed in @scalzi.com … I’m a big fan of his work. Reading through his comments I perceived a bit less curiosity than I expected from & more rationalization. Too bad he didn’t just look up charger locations on PlugShare and read this interactive.carbonbrief.org/factcheck/el...
Yeah, as the whole assertion tangential to that often lampooned “I need a $50,000 EV with 600 mile range that can carry 10” vibe is just so silly. But mostly it’s the jingoist main character syndrome, not much demand globally for that, it’s all affordable EVs ~300 mile range range.
Just engagement baiting. There’s no demand, hence lucids horrible sales.
300 miles would be plenty. It's the range of our current gas vehicles.
And that’s been available in EVs for half a decade!
EV adopters have taken the plunge integrating the theoretical use cases vs. actual driving and nearly all stick with it. For some, the edge cases (potentially an industry generated myth) are just too much. Move the easy folks to adopt and gently let the rest experience what the tech can do.
We have to remember that ppl who haven’t owned an EV will have the same range anxiety we had 10yrs ago. In 2025 to us it seems weird to talk about how many miles an EV gets but ppl want to keep their legacy brands and most of them suck at building EVs
That's exactly it, the lack of experience owning, and I'd expect, in general being open and curious about EVs, the OP comments really come from a position of not wanting to engage with the tech which seems downright bizarre for a Sci-Fi author. Oh well, not buying a book from a luddite.
The EV transition is inevitable and if it was something horrible and ICE cars were demonstrably better, I would say it. Most ppl who switch to EVs don’t want to go back to gas. The luddites should be asking why.
Exactly! And this perspective (the OPs) is so troublesome because they're looking outward and saying 'hey, this isn't the same as gas, and until it doesn't require me learning ANYTHING, I won't consider one' vs 'Oh sh!t the worlds rapidly adopting EVs and my state is super far behind, this bad'.
It seems to me that the US is having the same infrastructure debate we were having in the uk 6-7 years ago. Nowadays for us it’s expensive to charge in the wild BUT chargers are plenty and widespread. Unfortunately vandalism/theft/failures still makes it necessary to have a plan B/C on a long trip.
It's really hard to group all of the U.S. together, which I'm guessing is why international reporting agencies now like the IEA, provide context on California and than the U.S. The portion of the U.S. that isn't California, yeah. California who buys most of the EVs, no Strange place no nat policy
Larger geographical area to cover too which I’m guessing is a bit of a catch 22 situation. People ideally want long range EVs because of lack of infrastructure and infra companies are not investing because of lack of EV take up in certain areas of the country.