spoon059 wrote:
Interesting, electric or hybrid only cars by 2040. France also produces the overwhelming majority of its electricity by nuclear power. Certainly an interesting goal, but European travel is dramatically different from how we travel here. They have very dense city centers, whereas we are more spread out with suburbs. They have a very developed infrastructure for trains to travel longer distances, whereas we rely far more on vehicles for long distance travels.
Interesting to see how it plays out.
I agree. With the present crop of EV's they are better suited to a European environment. Not to mention we like our trucks over here. Having said that I suspect more people are suited to EV's than they know. We made the switch a couple years ago with the intention that we would rent a gas car if we had to do longer trips and pay for it with the fuel savings and maintenance savings. But so far that hasn't had to happen. Most of our trips are less than 200 km which is the max range of our one car. (The other is shorter but we use it mostly for ínter urbain transport). We have had to make a few longer trips but find we don't mind the 20 - 30 minute fast charge and usually combine it with a Starbucks stop or chihuahua break. And having said that, I think most of the late 2017 and 2018 offerings from EV manufacturers are now all greater than 300 km and actually around 400 km. We'll stay with what we have till we retire but my guess is in a few years many will be north of 500 km. Gotta say though, from what we have learned about our driving habits and needs, we wouldn't pay even extra 3000 bucks to go from 300 km to 400 km of range. Just wouldn't be worth it.
We do 90 percent of our charging in our garage but it is nice to see the public sector adding fast charge iinfrastructure. Handy when you need it...which is every out of tow trip.
