In a way I find it somewhat funny that of all people, pilots seem to keep on ranting about the practical problems of driving an EV by mentioning the issue of range anxiety/lack of public charging. Just look at what’s involved in flying. How much fuel do I need? Do I need to fill up or is there still enough fuel in the aircraft? Is the fuel station open? Can I carry that fuel given the weight of the payload? Is there fuel at destination? Can I pay with a credit card? Am I sure the pump over there is not inop?
About 90% of those are the man-made, artificial reasons why I’d personally only be interested in local flying if I lived in Europe – where man has already screwed up traveling by plane, while only having done the job half way for driving (so far). I’d have no interest in putting up with fuel related BS for flying, no more than I’m going to put up with it for driving.
In a car I actually need about 700 miles range over 12 hours, not 1000 miles, as that’s how far and fast I would reasonably drive any car in a day. I’ve done more on a number of occasions but that would be enough as long as the thing could be recharged (anywhere) in 6 hrs or less overnight. I think that’s very typical usage of a car, not the exception – not everybody lives on a tiny island. The price for recharge on the road would have to be competitive with gasoline too, not the 42 cents/kW-hr I’m paying for electricity nowadays.
A European friend of mine, having sold his company a few years ago is flying his Mooney long distances, currently he’s crossed the Atlantic and is in the US. I explained to him that almost every one of those little airports on his route has self service and/or cheap fuel, he can verify it and their price on Foreflight and that otherwise the preparation to land there and fill up would be zero, 24 hrs/day. I mentioned this because he’s been paying $7 a gallon at Class C airports and fancy FBOs when he could be paying $5.50, with less hassle to get in and out. He’s conditioned to the European ‘conform or be punished, expect hassle, pay tribute and endure stress for everything’ way, but if he learns better he’ll benefit while he’s out of that environment. On the other hand dealing with ATC, paying $100 extra for fuel and getting warm cookies at Atlantic Aviation makes some feel good about themselves, and is another thing that can’t so easily be done for every stop in Europe. I think he’s enjoying the latter for now, we all have different ways of gratifying ourselves. Like driving an EV and enduring the associated structure and limitations for similar reasons, it’s a choice. As long as you’re not asking others to pay for your car through tax credits, paid with borrowed money, to each his own.
Look at that graph properly i.e. which countries are driving the numbers 
Almost no growth in Europe, so allowing for the claimed explosive growth in Norway, what do you see??
Almost no growth in Europe, so allowing for the claimed explosive growth in Norway, what do you see??
Norway has almost none, because there hardly can be any, given the numbers
Europe has grown with 4% market share, all over in a year. China did a big jump from 15 to 30%.
I’d guess the EV upswing to 30% of the market in China is possible because despite it being a very large country, few travel any distance regularly.
I agree trip planning in an EV is very close to doing so for GA. But I don’t want to do that for my ground travels. That said, I trip plan a little bit to get the best petrol prices.
I read yesterday 54% of French EV owners regret their purchase.
I wonder what percentage of cars in the different countries of Europe are driven every day. I also wonder the percentage of those which are driven over 200km per day on average.
Eg The holiday season is on us in France as everyone knows. But there are in fact only IIUC 4 days out of the 2 months where people move on mass in their cars. Which in turn causes mass traffic jams on those days. These and the lead up to those days are covered heavily on television news with advice on how to prepare your car for the trip. The reason behind this, os that most people in the larger cities only use their cars to go on holiday or for special visits.
During the times I worked in the USA I don’t remember driving huge distances, although covering the distances I did drive seemed to take for ever due to the 55mph speed limit that seemed to be imposed everywhere. Is that still the case?
The other thing about travelling in the USA was that because of the proliferation of airports it was often easier and cheaper (time costs money) to charter a plane for people and equipment to go from one place to another rather than a truck and people carrier.
So it doesn’t surprise me that there is a lack of take up of EVs in the USA.
Cost of recharging at the charger in the public car park here is less than half what @Silvaire is paying.
One big advantage of using the charging stations in many public paying car parks is that you get the parking for free.
TOTALLY OFF TOPIC
It reminds me of when my wife and I worked in the West End of London. It was cheaper to drive the car to a car detailing firm in Holborn at 8.00am and return to pick up a beautifully cleaned car a 6.30pm than it was to feed parking meters all day🙂
We had to put 20L from a jerry can into a sailboat with a diesel engine the other day.
I notice that “white” (regular diesel for road use) while doing it is now dyed fluorescent yellow/green, it almost looks like the stuff in glow sticks. I’m pretty sure that road diesel used to be a slightly blueish colour (not like avgas blue, more of a hue). Wonder when this happened and why. I presume the “why” has to be mostly to identify “duty paid” but agricultural diesel was always dyed red anyway.
Ours is still clear or sometimes slightly nicotine stained. I wonder if that is something that has been introduced in the UK but not here. Yet.
I like a bit of colour in it because its easier to see any water. Jet A1 can be a pig on a cold day to know whether you are looking at fuel or water.
I read yesterday 54% of French EV owners regret their purchase.
Genuinely interested to read the source @jujupilote. Great news for people who cannot afford a new one, market must be flooding soon then in France
I only hear EV owners telling me that they would never go back to ICE, but maybe my sample size is too small..
