China, Europe Drive Shift To Electric Cars as US Lags (reuters.com)

Electric cars will pick up critical momentum in 2017, many in the auto industry believe - just not in North America. Tighter emissions rules in China and Europe leave global carmakers and some consumers with little choice but to embrace plug-in vehicles, fuelling an investment surge, said industry executives gathered in Detroit this past week for the city's annual auto show. From a report: "Car electrification is an irreversible trend," said Jacques Aschenbroich, chief executive of auto supplier Valeo, which has expanded sales by 50 percent in five years with a focus on electric, hybrid, connected and self-driving cars. In Europe, green cars benefit increasingly from subsidies, tax breaks and other perks, while combustion engines face mounting penalties including driving and parking restrictions. China, struggling with catastrophic pollution levels in major cities, is aggressively pushing plug-in vehicles. Its carrot-and-stick approach combines tens of billions in investment and research funding with subsidies, and regulations designed to discourage driving fossil-fueled cars in big cities. The road ahead for electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States, however, could have more hairpin curves.

Comments

Re:Population density

[MightyMartian]

I posted the links above. The US's urbanization is largely the same as Europe's larger countries, and in fact, China hasn't even reached 60% urbanization yet. The only real exceptions are relatively small countries like Belgium and Luxembourg. Heck, Germany has a higher rural population per capita than the US.

Infrastructure vs Independence

[holophrastic]

I don't understand people. I can't drive to the middle of a mountain range, and charge an electric car. There's no electric grid there. I can easily fill up on fuel wherever a fuel truck can drop some off -- which is basically the very same places that my car can go.

North America is very different than Europe. Paris and London are how many hours away? A European train can take you through ten countries in a single day. In North America, you'd be lucky to hit five major cities in 24 hours of driving.

There's a lot more middle-of-nowhere around here. It's not about electric vs gasolene. It's about portable fuel vs transmission-over-infrastructure. We don't have any infrastructure -- that's why we have roads to get between places.

Re:It's about landmass

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Use cases like yours and mine where I have a lake property 2.25 hours away where I have to tow stuff to and there isn't electricity on site are not something EVs can meet now in the future maybe but then we are a limited few. That said you have people like my wife who 90% of the time drives 5 miles a day and the rest of the time drives at most 60 miles a day can get by with an EV without issue. My mother, step dad, step mom, sister, mother-in-law, and father-in-law could have their entire driving needs met by just about any EV available now (maybe not the volt without it going to gas mode). So in my immediate family only myself, my father, and my brother-in-law who can't meet all our vehicle needs with an EV. Even then my father would only need a non EV to tow his race car to tracks as he doesn't have a long commute and everything he needs is close by otherwise. So that leaves myself with my 64 mile daily commute plus what ever else I have do that day, and my brother-in-law who fixes commercial restaurant equipment and drives from job to job in a big ass van all day.

Renault Zoe

[DrYak]

What range do you think EVs have on a single charge, anyway?

Between 100km and 150km per 20kWh worth of battery charge.
Exact mileage depends on car model.
(e.g.: Tesla use lighter than average material and are designed from the ground up for longer ranges.
Other cars are simply "an electric motor replacing the ICE under the bonnet and batteries bolted wherever there's free place" quick conversion like the VW e-Golf and VW e-Up that VW hastily released in the wake of the diesel scandal, and might have lower mileages).
Also depends on the driver (driving like an aggressive idiot at high speed on the highway, and you'll get a lower range than driving conservatively maybe a bit under the maximum speed limit).

I can drive upwards of 3 hours without a break.

Which is *definitely* not recommanded.
Current recommendations here around in continental Europe is a break each 1 or 2 hours max.
(e.g.: There are big public service campaigns to advise drivers to have at least a quick "turbo-nap" every once in a while when driving long distance)

But let's make the assumption that you are 2 drivers sharing the load, and that you'll switch midway (without charging the car, nor making any break longer than required to change seat - no the best experience, but hey).

With an average-priced EV, that's not even near possible.

Renault Zoe are currently the cheapest e-cars with a decent battery.
(You can even get them for the price of an average priced ICE-car if you decide to rent the battery instead of buying it).
(They are definitely after the same market as Tesla's upcoming model 3, except that Zoes have been on the street for quite some time, and Renault chose the opposite progression from Tesla, release progressively longer range vehicle while staying affordable - instead of long range vehicles while progressively releasing cheaper models)

The latest model has upgraded the battery to 45kWh, which should give you between 200km and 300km of range. (depending on the speed/aggressiveness of driving 130km vs 100km on highway vs. 80km on streets between cities).

That's definitely in near the 3 hours of your example (and by now, both drivers of our assumption should get a nap, or at least make a long break - enough to put quite some additionnal range back into the battery using standard 50kW chargers)
For a car that cost in the general ballpark figure of ~30k USD (not some 100k+ USD Tesla Model S super car).

And all of the above aren't made up numbers, but my actual experience with Zoes.
They are available at the local car-sharing company (though not the more recent 45kWh battery), and I've already driven quite a lot of trip with them.
I can easy get 100km when I drive aggressively or 150km when much more conservative.

The current drawback I see, is that Renault doesn't have collision avoidances option available on their smaller cars like the Zoe.
(unlike VW where - like lots of european constructors - for the last several years even the lowest entry-level model like Up comes with a LIDAR [a.k.a. "City Safety"] in standard configurations,
or unlike all the noise that Tesla is making around their "Autopilot" since a couple of years ago).