1 in 5 electric vehicle owners in California switched back to gas

[DevSecOps]

You will never get people to switch gas furnace to electric unless u cut electric cost by 95%. Nat is sooooooo cheap and most grids remc grids and place outside of cities can't handle housing switching all electric and EVs in a 10 yr period. Nay gas is so cheap compared to electric for heat not even a comparison. Even if u give someone electric heaters for free in 3-5 yrs it would be more expensive for the electric.

In many places you are correct. It just so happens that where I live it's probably a wash. Our price per kWh is 0.09 - 0.13 for 20 hours of the day. But there's much more to it than just price. When the majority of electricity is still gas generated the conversion from gas to electricity to heat is multiple times less efficient than pure gas heat especially when you get below a heat pumps delta temp. This also applies to propulsion energy, but I'll just stop there before we dive down a rabbit hole.

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[Jim D]

Thank you for making my point. You just said the same thing without involving politically charged views. When we speak without political, social or racial motivation we get our point across much better because it doesn't go against what many people might disagree with.

Factually, most states or utilities have rebates that are meant to cover L2 charging installs. Some don't, but most do. Even if the state doesn't have that, everyone who purchases an EV, other than a Tesla, is eligible for a 7500 fed rebate which should help install that L2 charger. No one is advocating that L3 is the way you should charge on the daily, for a variety of reasons, cost included. A lot of new housing is being built with L2 already "plumbed" in. I think the government and utilities, by means of rebates are already encouraging people to put in L2. I think there might be a few people who take that 7500 on a vacation instead of installing a charger.

Either way the government normally doesn't give credits to switch your gas stove/water heaters to an electrical variant. That's normally left to the utilities. Government does however subsidize fuel in order to keep our costs down so people can afford it (at least that's the intent). So when we compare governmental subsidies of ICE to EV we should be comparing the publicly available refueling/recharging.

Lastly, businesses have HUGE subsidies available for installing L2 and L3 chargers on their property and they can even make a profit on the charging. This would include property owners for apartment and condominium complexes. Why they don't install them ... I believe that it's because the demand from the tenants isn't there. 5 tenants out of 100 may not justify the cost even with subsidies.

You may find the following interesting reading

https://www.fuelsinstitute.org/Research/Reports/EV-Consumer-Behavior/EV-Consumer-Behavior-Report.pdf

showing current demographics for BEV drivers. To get from where we are today to a higher adoption rate for EVs is going to take a lot of work. Moving forward with an emphasis on DC Fast Charging ends up costing more money for people that cannot charge at home. I do 99% of my charging at home at night at 6.6 cents/KW, when I hit a DC Fast Charge I paid 41 cents/kw. So not having a charge at home/work solution available is a giant road block to buying an EV.

 

[DevSecOps]

You may find the following interesting reading

https://www.fuelsinstitute.org/Research/Reports/EV-Consumer-Behavior/EV-Consumer-Behavior-Report.pdf

showing current demographics for BEV drivers. To get from where we are today to a higher adoption rate for EVs is going to take a lot of work. Moving forward with an emphasis on DC Fast Charging ends up costing more money for people that cannot charge at home. I do 99% of my charging at home at night at 6.6 cents/KW, when I hit a DC Fast Charge I paid 41 cents/kw. So not having a charge at home/work solution available is a giant road block to buying an EV.

Maybe I'm not making myself clear, which is my fault. I'm not advocating that L3 be the daily method of charging. I understand that if you own an EV you should also own an L2. Completely agree 10000%. What I'm saying is that we, as in our tax money, gave people credits for purchasing an EV. Some of those credits were for L2 chargers. Here's a good link for California credits. Some people can get $9500 in credit before the $7500 fed credit. That money is recommended to be used to install a L2 charger, in part. Some places, like where I live, the electrical utility actually sent a contractor to install it at no charge. On top of it we give incentives to private companies to install L2 in their parking lots.

So my point is that you can lead a horse to water (give them money for L2), but you can't make them drink (actually install the L2).

I know the article says that L2 is the issue. I have a really hard time believing that. Just look at all of the comments here and on any EV forum. Most people complain about range, L3 availability, L3 functioning properly, time to charge, etc which all fall under the "charging problem" umbrella but rarely do I see someone complain about not being able to install L2 at home. Most of the time I see that for people in apartment complexes. A lot of those people also don't have laundry hookups and have to go to laundromats. Thus is the problem with especially older complexes. Like I said however, newer buildings, newer hotels, newer houses are being built with these capabilities installed already, which is a good thing, but it's the private sector doing that.

 

[BMT1071]

Maybe I'm not making myself clear, which is my fault. I'm not advocating that L3 be the daily method of charging. I understand that if you own an EV you should also own an L2. Completely agree 10000%. What I'm saying is that we, as in our tax money, gave people credits for purchasing an EV. Some of those credits were for L2 chargers. Here's a good link for California credits. Some people can get $9500 in credit before the $7500 fed credit. That money is recommended to be used to install a L2 charger, in part. Some places, like where I live, the electrical utility actually sent a contractor to install it at no charge. On top of it we give incentives to private companies to install L2 in their parking lots.

So my point is that you can lead a horse to water (give them money for L2), but you can't make them drink (actually install the L2).

I know the article says that L2 is the issue. I have a really hard time believing that. Just look at all of the comments here and on any EV forum. Most people complain about range, L3 availability, L3 functioning properly, time to charge, etc which all fall under the "charging problem" umbrella but rarely do I see someone complain about not being able to install L2 at home. Most of the time I see that for people in apartment complexes. A lot of those people also don't have laundry hookups and have to go to laundromats. Thus is the problem with especially older complexes. Like I said however, newer buildings, newer hotels, newer houses are being built with these capabilities installed already, which is a good thing, but it's the private sector doing that.

The people that argue the most about DCFC are people that don't own BEVs. The problem with the current tax credit structure is that lower income families can't take advantage of it fully/at all. The federal money should be usable at POS instead of on a tax return.

 

[Jim D]

You may find the following interesting reading

https://www.fuelsinstitute.org/Research/Reports/EV-Consumer-Behavior/EV-Consumer-Behavior-Report.pdf

showing current demographics for BEV drivers. To get from where we are today to a higher adoption rate for EVs is going to take a lot of work. Moving forward with an emphasis on DC Fast Charging ends up costing more money for people that cannot charge at home. I do 99% of my charging at home at night at 6.6 cents/KW, when I hit a DC Fast Charge I paid 41 cents/kw. So not having a charge at home/work solution available is a giant road block to buying an EV.

I want to step back to a couple of statements from the article

• Roughly 20% of electric vehicle owners in California replaced their cars with gas ones, a new study shows.
• The main reason drivers made the switch was the inconvenience of charging.

and

Roughly one in five plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners switched back to owning gas-powered cars, in large part because charging the batteries was a pain in the… trunk, the researchers found.
Of those who switched, over 70% lacked access to Level 2 charging at home, and slightly fewer than that lacked Level 2 connections at their workplace.
"If you don't have a Level 2, it's almost impossible," said Tynan, who has tested a wide range of makes and models of PEVs over the years for his research.


This backs my concern to get beyond the early adopters access to level 2 charging at a place where the vehicle owner will be for a numbers hours is important. Access to level 2 at home and/or at work is essential to increase the adoption of EV technology from the current maybe 1.5-2.5% to get up to 10 or 25%. Incentives for condo associations and landlords to install charging at a reasonable rate is money better spent than pushing for a lot of DC Fast Charging. Now California may have already started some of this, but in general I don't see enough of it.
Unless that issue can be resolved we will see a slow adoption rate.

 

[BMT1071]

The other salient point is that they surveyed consumers that purchased their BEV between 2012-2018. The charging landscape has changed significantly and is getting better all the time.

 

[TGIF]

"If you don't have a Level 2, it's almost impossible,"

I have said EVs are not for everyone. I live about 60 miles from the nearest city. I want a car that can get me there, run some errands, and back without a stop to charge and with a reasonable buffer. I want it ready to go again the next day. Fortunately, I can afford a Level 2 ESVE in my garage. If I couldn’t do that I probably wouldn’t go EV. However, there are many more people who could go EV than think they could.

 

[Socalsp3]

4 in 5 ice owners who switched from ev switched back citing $6 gas

 

[WNKent]

There are so many charging stations in CA and incentives for free home charging stations that I don't believe this.

Yup, I don't either. In Silicon Valley at least, I see more and more Teslas, daily.

 

[StillWaitingForMachE]

1 in 5 electric vehicle owners in California switched back to gas because charging their cars is a hassle, new research shows

Dominick Reuter
Fri, April 30, 2021, 12:41 PM

Mustang Mach-E GT Performance Edition. Ford

• Roughly 20% of electric vehicle owners in California replaced their cars with gas ones, a new study shows.
• The main reason drivers made the switch was the inconvenience of charging.
• The findings suggest new challenges facing the growth of the nascent electric vehicle market.

In roughly three minutes, you can fill the gas tank of a Ford Mustang and have enough range to go about 300 miles with its V8 engine.
But for the electric Mustang Mach-E, an hour plugged into a household outlet gave Bloomberg automotive analyst Kevin Tynan just three miles of range.

"Overnight, we're looking at 36 miles of range," he told Insider. "Before I gave it back to Ford, because I wanted to give it back full, I drove it to the office and plugged in at the charger we have there."
Standard home outlets generally put out about 120 volts of power at what electric vehicle aficionados call "Level 1" charging, while the high-powered specialty connections offer 240 volts of power and are known as "Level 2." By comparison, Tesla's "Superchargers," which can fully charge its cars in a little over an hour, offer 480 volts of direct current.

That difference is night and day, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Energy by University of California Davis researchers Scott Hardman and Gil Tal that surveyed Californians who purchased an electric vehicle between 2012 and 2018.

Roughly one in five plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners switched back to owning gas-powered cars, in large part because charging the batteries was a pain in the… trunk, the researchers found.
Of those who switched, over 70% lacked access to Level 2 charging at home, and slightly fewer than that lacked Level 2 connections at their workplace.
"If you don't have a Level 2, it's almost impossible," said Tynan, who has tested a wide range of makes and models of PEVs over the years for his research.


Even with the faster charging, a Chevy Volt he tested still needed nearly six hours to top its range back up to 300 miles from nearly empty - something that takes him just minutes at the pump with his family SUV.
Public charging stations may look like the electric version of the gas station, but nearly two-thirds of PEV drivers in the survey said they didn't use them. Exactly why they didn't use the public stalls was not specified.
EVs have come a long way in recent years in terms of range, safety, comfort, and tech features, but Hardman and Tal note that very little has changed in terms of how they are recharged.


The researchers warned that this trend could make it harder to achieve electric vehicle sales targets in California and other countries, and the growth of the market overall.
"It should not be assumed that once a consumer purchases a PEV they will continue owning one," Hardman and Tal wrote. "What is clear is that this could slow PEV market growth and make reaching 100% PEV sales more difficult."

Fixing the charging issue will require more participation from automakers, who have yet to find a profitable way of producing electric cars. Even Tesla, easily the leader in the category, was only able to eke out a first-quarter profit by selling energy credits and bitcoin.
"For all those legacy automakers, that profit and loss piece does matter. And that's why you're getting this half effort on electrification," Tynan said.

Lots of problems with this article. For one thing, Tesla is profitable without the carbon credits (not that I'm a fan of Musk, but just fact checking)

For another thing, you should not be buying an electric car if you're not going to install level 2 charging at home. Even if you live near a bunch of fast chargers, those are bad for your battery life if that's all you use.

And for a third, you may say needing 8 hours to charge is inconvenient. And I say "but I'll be sleeping so as far as I am concerned, I close my eyes and it's low battery, and open them and it's ready to go"

 

[IgorKl]

I believe a lot of people buys EVs just by impulse and because everybody else have it. I spent about 3 years to prepare my family for EVs. We installed solar pannels and added 2 240V outlets in garage (50 Amp breakers, probably had to do 60 Amp breakers, but I'm OK with 40A charging).
We had relative who rented EV and we were watching the charging journey and only after that we bought our MMEs.

I know people who rent and may not have access to 240V outlet and they rely on charging stations and this is killing EV experience.

 

[Scooby24]

I believe a lot of people buys EVs just by impulse and because everybody else have it. I spent about 3 years to prepare my family for EVs. We installed solar pannels and added 2 240V outlets in garage (50 Amp breakers, probably had to do 60 Amp breakers, but I'm OK with 40A charging).
We had relative who rented EV and we were watching the charging journey and only after that we bought our MMEs.

I know people who rent and may not have access to 240V outlet and they rely on charging stations and this is killing EV experience.

EVs definitely take preparation if you want to enjoy your experience. Like you, I went solar and added 240v to the garage with 2-3 years of planning before I was able to take the plunge.

I tell folks the efforts I went and they immediately brush off the idea of owning an EV.

Very few people would go to the extent we did and it's certainly not necessary but it really pulled together to make my EV ownership experience fantastic. Fuel isn't costing me anything and I've got two EVs I can have fully charged all the time from home.

 

[IgorKl]

EVs definitely take preparation if you want to enjoy your experience. Like you, I went solar and added 240v to the garage with 2-3 years of planning before I was able to take the plunge.

I tell folks the efforts I went and they immediately brush off the idea of owning an EV.

Very few people would go to the extent we did and it's certainly not necessary but it really pulled together to make my EV ownership experience fantastic. Fuel isn't costing me anything and I've got two EVs I can have fully charged all the time from home.

it's very unfortunate that people do not doing research. I think if you cannot charge at home or work regularly only Tesla makes sense due to charging speed and Supercharges availability.

also, going EV without own solar system will give more load on local electric grid and may lead to EV charging restrictions and rates increases. Bay Area is best example, electricity cost a lot even charging at home night time I'm theoretically paying 30-37 cents per kW.

 

[leeman]

Use the 240 and it charges just fine. Commutes with the car three days a week I go to the fast chargers every once in a while to use up the free charging. Although after the last few updates I get a lot of charging faults and I have to unplug and replug in the connector.

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