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‘The early adopters have adopted’: US carmakers slow their EV growth plans

www.ft.com ‘The early adopters have adopted’: US carmakers slow their EV growth plans

Consumer appetite for battery-powered cars and trucks has fallen short of industry expectations

‘The early adopters have adopted’: US carmakers slow their EV growth plans
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  • I went to the Ford site to look into their EVs earlier this week. Their site on EV info is so disorganized and unhelpful. Trying to figure out how much charging would cost and the logistics of long-distance travel is way too confusing. They're even messing it up with a subscription plan to their in-network chargers.

    I suspect this is part of the reason people aren't buying Ford EVs. Buying a car from a dealership is already too antagonized because we all know they're trying to rip us off. To try to balance it out, shoppers try to gain as much knowledge on the car so they know what they're agreeing to. However, when the car comes with all this new technology that changes the way we maintain them, and available info is scattered, indirect, unclear, and potentially costs even more, that will push away people that don't want to deal with it.

    • Your electric bill absolutely will not go up by as much as your saving on gas. It’s tough to figure out how much because it depends on your electric rate and how much you drive as well as your charging habits.

      I charge my car to full every night and live in western PA, but not sure of what the rates are for electric. My bill is under $150/month though. Gas is almost $4/gallon. Before our first EV in 2018 we spent about $200 a week on gas and gas has only gotten more expensive. We spend less on Electric per month for the entire house (not just the car) than we did on a week in gas.

      As for long trips, that’s an area seriously lacking. I use ABRP which is a mapping software that uses your specific model, battery charge, distance, elevation, traffic, and weather to figure out when to charge and for how long. You can also link up a OBDII sensor to get live data for more accurate route adjustments. I’d recommend giving that a look and mess with different cars to see what cars fit the routes you drive the best.

      I drove to Kentucky from western PA and only had to stop three times for about 2 hours of charge total in a Kia Niro 2022 EV. But we then didn’t stop to eat at other times we would have because we stopped in places with restaurants so it wasn’t 2 hours lost.

      We also did a trip to Washington DC to see the pandas before they left and made it the whole way with no charge. We only had to charge on the way home.

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