From the article: “About a decade ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” projections of how far owners can drive before needing to recharge, a source told Reuters. The automaker last year became so inundated with driving-range complaints that it created a special team to cancel owners’ service appointments.”
Correct, and with better batteries or cheaper electricity, we can move forward. The current state of EVs is not useful for all people. Personally, I’m 5 years away from never needing a car again. In the meantime, I must commute.
Yup.
I need a cheap EV (<$10k) with >100 miles (160km) range to handle a 25mi (40km) commute year round (we’re consistently below freezing in the winter), and a long range family vehicle (minivan or SUV) that can go >400mi (640km) in the summer (100F, or ~38C, outside temp).
Current offerings either have too little range (e.g. older Leafs), cost too much and have excessive range (Bolt, Model 3, etc), or can’t fit my family (3 kids; carseat + booster) and don’t quite have enough range (need a replacement for our minivan).
The proper solution is a mix of better mass transit (so I wouldn’t need a commuter at all) and better battery tech. Even if charging stations were plentiful (they’re not), I don’t want to charge 3-4 times on one trip (e.g. visiting my parents is 850 miles, my brother is 650 miles, and we do one of those almost every year; both have crazy steep mountain passes at highway speeds).
In 5-10 years, I won’t need a commuter. In 101-15, I won’t need the family car. But for now, EVs are either too expensive or too inconvenient, or both.
Again, nothing is useful to ALL people. The EV is far less polluting than the car, easier to drive, easier and cheaper to live with over time…but it doesn’t mean you go back to burning dinosaur juice (and all the pollution you need to create and ship it locally) as a solution for everyone.