It’s pretty clear that cars with combustion engines will soon be extinct. Right now, the only alternative seems to be battery-powered electric cars. Other technologies are still a long way from being practical, if they ever will be. I just have one problem with electric cars: they don’t fit into my life.
No, I don’t need a car to be loud and smelly. It just needs to get me and my cargo (passengers and luggage) reliably and flexibly from A to B. That distance could be 10 kilometers to the next town, or it could be 1,600 kilometers for a camping trip to southern Italy. For the latter, I’d be annoyed if we couldn’t make the drive in a single day, but I could live with that.
What about trips to visit family? Doable on a single charge, but I’d have to charge it once I got there. At my parents’ place, there’s at least a power connection for a wallbox, so that would hardly be a problem, aside from the extra cost for the wallbox itself. But we’d be able to get back home. And once we’re there? That’s where I’m screwed. I live in a rental apartment with no power outlet at my parking spot. That means no chance of charging the car. Nearby? There’s a station 500 meters away at the train station, with a time limit. So I can’t just charge it overnight; I have to time it so I can go pick up the car when the allowed parking time is up. Great, especially when you get home late and have to be up early.
I guess I could fast-charge at the Aral station a few kilometers away in an industrial park. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do there for 40-60 minutes while the car charges. It takes me three minutes at most to fill up my diesel, and even less at the Avia Express where you can pay with a card at the pump. But I simply can’t charge an electric car without a huge amount of extra effort. I’d probably rarely have a fully charged car, which completely rules out any spontaneous ideas. A spur-of-the-moment day trip to Cologne? Crap, car’s not fully charged. With the charging stops, it’s not worth it for just one day anymore.
My diesel can go 800-900 km on a single tank and is ready to go again in a few minutes. An electric car today can probably do 400 kilometers, only to be stuck at a charging station for an hour or so. And usually not in places where you’d actually want to be stranded.
Electric cars aren’t the problem; the chargers are. There are too few of them, they’re in the wrong places, and charging takes forever. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t know today what he’ll be doing tomorrow. I’ve been driving my car for more than 12 years and don’t want to buy a new one as long as this one still works. I hope it keeps running for a few more years, because right now, I simply don’t want an electric car. Especially not with the higher prices.