Don't worry, in Europe, the incumbent manufacturers have a much better way to prevent EV sales: lack of charging spots. Unless you are rich enough to own a house and install your own charger, the law still does not mandate, even for apartment buildings currently under construction, electrical plugs in parking spots. Which means that, if you rent, you can't buy an EV. If you own your apartment, you STILL can't buy an EV (unless you convince everyone else to spend at least 5k€/spot to install such plugs, and wait 2-3 years).
I don’t know where you base your claim on. Do you own an electric car in Europe?
I live in Europe and own an electric car. There are fast chargers everywhere and also some slow chargers near my house. I mostly drive in the Netherlands and Germany. Charging infrastructure is not a problem at all!
If there is a problem though, it’s German electricity prices. Charging is almost as expensive as refueling a car per km.
There are loads of chargers all over Europe. And of course the most important one is close to where you live which you use for charging most of the time.
My parents actually have an EV and rely on neighborhood chargers because their apartment block doesn't have a charger yet. It's fine. A bit of chore to park the car 500m from where they live once a week or so and then unplug it and drive it back to its regular parking spot. They are still saving loads of cash on fuel using only public chargers. Beats having to spend 60-70 euros on petrol. And it's not like they sit around waiting for the thing to charge.
Also, you can charge most cars of a regular wall socket. It will be slow. But it works. Or you can use one of the hundreds of thousands of slow chargers in Europe. There are around 0.5M currently. Projected to double to 1M next year and grow to 3M by 2030. Lots of fast chargers too. You can drive all over Europe with an EV.
It's petrol car owners that need to start worrying. Who is still supplying petrol? How far to the next working petrol station? The market for petrol and diesel is shrinking as rapidly as the EV market is growing. More, probably, because early adopters tend to be the ones that drive the most. You can't get petrol at home. And if your local petrol station closes, you'll need to drive a bit further.
With commercial fleets, lease cars, delivery vans, etc. all going electric in a hurry, there are simply going to be less petrol stations. It's like finding hay or water for your horse when cars became a thing. Not going to be a thing on every street corner.
That's meaningless if the chargers are not at your home or close to where you live. And the public chargers available half are broken or have some issue or terrible UX on payment. Plus long charring time so you need to take time out of your day to go back to the charger and bring your car back home. Terrible UX versus a 3 minute refuel at a gas station and you're done for the week.
EVs make the most sense when you have your charger at home, or at least at work. Otherwise UX sucks balls. Imagine not being able to charge your phone at home and always be looking to charge it in public. That would suck, wouldn't it?
>It's petrol car owners that need to start worrying.
Do you see gas stations closing en-masse yet? I haven't.
>delivery vans, etc. all going electric in a hurry
They are not in any hurry. Only the national post where I live has some EV delivery vans for virtue signaling and green washing. All the other smaller delivery companies and contractors use diesel vans almost exclusively because they need to actually care about range, saving money and turning a profit.
I think most people that have EVs are pretty happy. Very few people going back to an ICE car once they switch. Of course there are counter examples. But they are outnumbered by 9 to 1 by people that stick with EVs. And then they convince their neighbors. That's why the market is growing. By 20% world wide.
Anyway, apparently Shell is planning to close a 1000 stations. About half of the petrol stations in the Netherlands are projected to disappear over the next 5-10 years. Not surprising considering the massive shift to EVs. Some countries this will go quicker than others of course. But even countries like Germany are starting to see a shift.
You can deny all you want but the numbers are there if you care to look at them. I don't know many businesses that can deal with double digit percentages drops in demand. That's exactly what petrol stations have been facing for a while now and will continue to face. All the obvious things are happening. By the 2030s most commercial traffic will be electric. Because it's simply cheaper. It's not virtue signalling but economics that's driving this.
All the small businesses, contractors, etc. that convince themselves they need to buy diesel at a premium in large quantities will be competing against others that simply don't. More every year. The rest is just Darwinism and market inertia.
>I think most people that have EVs are pretty happy.
Well d'uh, that's why they bought EVs in the fist place, but that's not the point. The point is to convince the people who don't have EVs to get EVs. You need to make them happy too, otherwise they're not gonna buy EVs. Why don't people get this fact?
>You can deny all you want but the numbers are there if you care to look at them.
Care to share them? Also, the NL isn't representative for all of Europe, not by a long shot. Most new cars I see in my neighborhood are diesel, lots of new diesel SUVs, and EVs are only in the suburbs where the richer people live in their single family homes, while poor and middle class drive ICEs because they don't have chargers at home or at work. What happens in the NL has no impact where I live and vice versa.
>All the small businesses, contractors, etc. that convince themselves they need to buy diesel
They didn't "convince themselves" as if it's some cult/religion, they actually did the math on the economics and decided that diesel is better for their businesses' bottom line. You'd also know that if you'd get out of your bubble.
No they didn't. Approximately 0% of small business owners have time to sit down and do math. They keep buying diesel because that's what they've always bought. They've learned the hard won lesson that change is hard and change is costly. Few small business owners are going to be on the bleeding edge.
> Unfortunately, this also means that many locations that are good as gas locations today in Norway will lose their relevance in the future. Even with the high EV penetration in Norway, few gas stations have been closed so far. Although some of the players aim to be “the last man standing,” there is little doubt that many sites will be closed in the years to come. This may be unfortunate for smaller communities that rely on having one or two gas stations.
The problem is that using public chargers is, at least in Sweden, so expensive compared to home charging that its suddenly an even worse economic choice to buy an EV. Using public DCFCs (even slow chargers are expensive) the cost is ofte comparable to diesel cars. Add ontop the very expensive EV prices...
What does the smell have to do with it? Do people choose car refueling methods based on smell of the refueling place, or on cost/convenience of ownership? Can't some drunks or homeless people piss and shit at EV charging station and make them smell even worse than gasoline fumes?
My point was you don't have to loiter for hours or leave your car at the gas station to fill it up then come back to get it like with EV chargers. It's a 3 minute in and out quickie situation so smell or not is not an issue.
I wrote that argument in my previous comment as well but I guess you didn't read it.
I have had an EV in Switzerland for four years. It’s not impossible but is hard. And no we don’t have as many as you think because half the time the ones that purport to be available don’t work.
If you drive tons that would be another story. Most trips are shorter so EVs are more viable.
I also could have asked to charge from the wall in our building but haven’t had to due to other charging options.
That is a fair point. But the car manufacturers have no influence over whether the charging spots are going to be built or not.
Even if there is no mandate to have them at the apartment buildings, the customers will naturally prefer those dwellings that do have them. Which in turn will create pressure on the building owners to have them installed.
I think (as already mentioned in other replies) it is usually less about chargers along major highways, but about charging at home/work. Which is especially relevant in places like Germany, where people primary rent rather than own their home and electricity costs are relatively high.
If you can't charge over night for cheap and maybe even combine it with your own solar installation, then EVs are losing a good part of their value proposition.
Many supermarkets had fast chargers in their car parks on my route, as well as chargers along highways, and in cities.
Charging overnight as far as I understand is a bonus proposition of EVs but given I could charge the car in about 10 minutes in a fast charger and have more than enough for a day staying in some cities I don't see much difference from ICEs stopping to fill up gas. It's a tad slower but not that much that bothered me and would make me choose an ICE car instead.
Even with paying fast chargers' fees it was still much cheaper than paying for petrol.
> Charging overnight as far as I understand is a bonus proposition
I would disagree with it being just a bonus proposition, since it imo is part of the inherent advantages.
And while i do agree with you that in many cases it will still be an overall favorable comparison for EVs vs ICE cars, i think there is no denying that between being able to charge at home for cheap and having to rely on public chargers there's a value (and convenience) difference.
I am not really up to date with how pricing looks (so feel free to correct me), but i think in Germany electricity at home is on average like 27ct/kWh, and on public chargers you pay between 40ct on the low end (possibly with some monthly base cost) up to 80ct on the high end for some DC fast chargers.
