In our parts of the country there are plenty of fast chargers to get us from Alabama to Texas or to Florida or Louisiana or any other trips we've made. It took a few minutes of planning to find the chargers before the trip (much like using maps back in the pre-GPS days). We've looked at a long road trip to the northeast and see plenty of chargers for that trip. But that's the densely populated east coast. I'm sure if we visited family in the midwest we'd have to take the ICE pickup.
Yeah, last year a lot of the EV's had sky high prices. Part of that was fad --- on top of the artificially inflated prices from govt stimulus (which inflated them more with the Inflation Raising Act). It was a bad time to buy an EV last year unless it was just the right time for you anyway (i.e. the car you're replacing was on its last legs). And even then it depends on how many miles you put on it to get enough gas savings. (For us we've put 29K miles on it in the 13 months we've owned it, with maybe 26K of those miles charged at home. Obviously for us it was more than a toy.) Now that EV prices have come down a bit I still wouldn't suggest getting one unless you drive it at least 15K miles per year. I'm just being practical about gas and oil change savings vs extra costs of an EV. Not hating EV's, nor thinking they're saving the world. Just looking at when they're best for a person's use case.
Fast charging damages the battery, and shortens the lifetime of the battery. I have not read about the connection between fast charging and battery fires, so I cannot state that there is a connection. Some European ferries have banned EVs from their services due to the EV fires. Several NY buildings have also banned e-bikes and scooters due to fires.
Ford, Rivian, and others just received another massive influx of taxpayer dollars.
The Chicoms boast about all the EVs they are making. Recently a video was smuggled out of China, a video of thousands and thousands of EVs decaying in huge fields. Reminds me of the USSR and the farm tractor factories. Inside, EVERYBODY has a job. Outside, there were hundreds of new tractors rusting away.
The reason we initially bought the BMW was because it was a certified used car, had every option that was available on the i3 and at the time, nobody wanted EV’s we paid less than $20k for a $60k car with 7,000 miles.
We only drove it one winter and it was fine. We live in a rural location in Michigan where the side roads are the last to get plowed and we had no problems when we had to drive it. I also had a 4-wheel drive pickup and a hybrid so we had options.
One of the biggest issues we found was the dealers were starting to install chargers but would block them with inventory or in one dealers case, put up a basketball backboard for their service department employees so you couldn’t access the charging station. When it’s the only charging station in the area, it doesn’t help
We would use Charge-Point to plan a trip and there are a few municipal high-speed chargers around, but unless they were in a designated area, we found ICE cars filling the spots.
Our local utility had about 20 charging stations in their parking garage that were rarely used, but the garage wasn’t available nights and weekends.
The City the utility is in has only 1. It was in the middle of the busiest section of downtown and parking was a premium. It was always filled with an ICE vehicle.
Our local hospital has two charging units, both are filled by employee EV’s on a daily basis.
Our son lives in a town where Charge Point has 2 chargers at the library. At least there the City has it set up where if the car is at the charger longer than 30-minutes after the charge is completed there is a “parking” fee that is rather hefty.
So charging away from home was always an issue.
The only reason we sold the BMW is because we brought our hybrid back from Florida when we sold our property there. We didn’t need the extra car and by then used cars were a premium and Carvana bought the BMW from us for more than we paid for it. So it was a win-win in that regard.
I would have purchased the ID-4 had the dealer been willing to deal on the car. He wasn’t and so we went another direction.
I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another one. My BMW was great because with the range extender I had the same options as an ICE vehicle. If the battery started getting low, it would switch to the engine. Although it was only a 2-gallon gas tank, it would get me an additional 100 miles or to the next gas station.
My complaint is with government mandating EV’s. What works in the city may not be best for a rural situation and vice-versa. Let ME decide what works for my driving situation, not a legislator who hasn’t driven a car in years or has some lobbyist greasing his palm. The free market is the best indicator of success or failure. Not the government.