Great analysis. I do think that if "consumer take-up is what will really move this needle," in your words, the needle will stay in a low zone for a darn long time.
Personal transportation is the hardest nut for this technology to crack -- all sorts of other vehicle classes are better suited to an EV switchover, from city buses to urban delivery runabouts to taxi fleets -- and while the financial disincentives you outline constitute a big hurdle, so too do all the usual complaints about value for money, range, thinly installed chargers, charging time, and battery life / safety / disposal.
Fleet operators of all varieties can fix those issues far faster and more economically than they'll be mitigated for the motoring public at large, so why not concentrate migration incentives there? (NB. I'll never be able to own a plug-in because I live in a high-rise and park in a communal garage that is not wired for chargers and never will be owing to installation costs. I sometimes think EV boosters believe the whole world lives in suburban homes with two-car garages.)
I think this is a 50-year project, all told, and individually owned vehicles will start to help "move the needle" en masse in two or three ownership cycles, e.g. 25 years from now.
Great analysis. I do think that if "consumer take-up is what will really move this needle," in your words, the needle will stay in a low zone for a darn long time.
Personal transportation is the hardest nut for this technology to crack -- all sorts of other vehicle classes are better suited to an EV switchover, from city buses to urban delivery runabouts to taxi fleets -- and while the financial disincentives you outline constitute a big hurdle, so too do all the usual complaints about value for money, range, thinly installed chargers, charging time, and battery life / safety / disposal.
Fleet operators of all varieties can fix those issues far faster and more economically than they'll be mitigated for the motoring public at large, so why not concentrate migration incentives there? (NB. I'll never be able to own a plug-in because I live in a high-rise and park in a communal garage that is not wired for chargers and never will be owing to installation costs. I sometimes think EV boosters believe the whole world lives in suburban homes with two-car garages.)
I think this is a 50-year project, all told, and individually owned vehicles will start to help "move the needle" en masse in two or three ownership cycles, e.g. 25 years from now.