Clickbait or something more insidious?

Clickbait or something more insidious?

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Discussion

ShortBeardy

Original Poster:

136 posts

147 months

Thursday 13th June
quotequote all

I am curious as to your opinion on the predominant anti EV (mis)information being promulgated by Youtube/social media and the media in general.

Looking back at other contentious phenomena over the years one might expect to see various arguments being put up by each side and then successively being debunked or confirmed and then the debate moving on to other arguments that are in turn addressed. However, during my own pre-purchase investigation of BEVs the obvious talking points of charging infrastructure, charge time, battery life, `don’t work in the cold’, massive depreciation, `no one wants them' etc. were raised time and time again. It seems that there is a continuous restating of previously discussed positions but despite some obvious `debunking’, no real movement forwards.
In that this appears (to me), to be at odds with other debates I wonder whether (or how much), of this continual barrage of misinformation is being encouraged/funded by lobbies with financial interests, or whether it is merely the result of people pushing their own channels to get more hits.

ShortBeardy

Original Poster:

136 posts

147 months

Friday 14th June
quotequote all
For sure there are use cases where an EV is not a good fit, but in many cases the limitations are overstated for effect. As an example one Youtuber would have you believe that the only thing any pickup driver does is tow a boat 200 miles into the outback of Australia. Apparently a ford F150 Lightning is not a good fit. But then neither is a mini or a moped or anything short of an F250 diesel.
However, for a lot of contractors a full sized pickup with electrical power on tap would be massively useful.

Without getting all tin foil hat conspiracy theorist, i wondered how much of this stuff was funded/encouraged/made popular by current businesses that would be undermined by large scale adoption of EVs.


ShortBeardy

Original Poster:

136 posts

147 months

Saturday 15th June
quotequote all
EVs continue to evolve and are proving adequate for an ever increasing percentage of people and applications but one can always invent an extreme usage case would be more optimally addressed by another vehicle. If PHers agree on one thing it's that there is no single `right car'. Any truly dedicated petrolhead would justify an EV travel appliance/`white goods' merely to subsequently justify the acquisition of some extreme petrol powered toy.
What gets on my t*ts is that this occasional requirement becomes the basis for the justification of ICE over EV.

ShortBeardy

Original Poster:

136 posts

147 months

Sunday 16th June
quotequote all
CLK-GTR said
"When a new technology requires you to plan around it and adapt to it that's to me a sign that it's not mature enough yet."

This is perhaps the nub of the problem. We have got used to `planning around' the way that ICE cars work and EVs are not a `drop in' replacement. They require a different plan.

Waiting for a battery to charge on a supercharger takes longer than filling up a tank at a gas station, but those who charge at home only do this on a long trip and never go to a public charger for local stuff. No one talks about the time saved not filling up for all the local stuff.