This is a pretty sad article. Here they talk about the location of charging stations, noting that they are in out of the way places:
Early charging stations in the United States have been placed in inconvenient places, too. Andrea Colomina, the sustainable communities program director at Green Latinos, said one of the first locations to get a charger in New York City was the parking lot of a zoo.
“The first generation [of charging stations] was really not holistically thought out. As usual, because men were making most of the decisions, they were not walking through the scenarios,” she said. “You have to think through what is the experience of every potential user.”
What is obviously missing from this discussion, is that economic factors and available space drive decisions like this. It's not simply that men are not thinking about women. Colomina is quoted as some kind of expert, but she is just offering bromides and commonplaces, nothing specifically related to factors that drove the early placement of charging stations.
> economic factors and available space drive decisions like this
And that's the problem!
You can't just focus on economics and space, you also need to consider the users. Placing the stations in "inconvenient places" will definitely hamper use. People, especially women, don't like going into potentially unsafe locations either. I have known people who avoid certain gas stations at night because they're dark and look dangerous.
Economics is a constraint. No amount of wishful thinking makes it go away.
Destination charging has been part of the EV vision since forever. It's perfectly reasonable for anyone who values safety or convenience to hold off until the infrastructure is mature enough to suit their needs. It's a bit silly to blame men for not building everything yesterday, though. It's doubly silly to frame this as a failure of imagination. Contractors and landlords don't take payment in imagination.
Likewise, lower price brackets have been the goal of the EV vision since forever (Tesla Master Plan, 2006). However, as with any technology, the users who are willing to tolerate more bugs and higher prices have to come first before the money/experience gleaned from them can be used to address the broader market. It's perfectly reasonable to hold off an EV purchase until EV manufacturers put out a competitive offering in your price bracket, but again, it's a bit silly to blame men for not building everything yesterday. These things take time.
It's disgusting to see people blame entire segments of the population when it's really just "someone didn't think of these things" or "it's not feasible right now" - whether it's economic, planning, management, etc. etc.
It's not "men" - as much as it's not "women" that mess things up or do things wrong.
It's such a cheap cop-out. Maybe people should be more informed about what an electric car entails before buying one, realizing it's a pain to charge it, then blame an entire population segment instead of blaming themselves and their lack of research.
> Here they talk about the location of charging stations, noting that they are in out of the way places...
> What is obviously missing from this discussion, is that economic factors and available space drive decisions like this.
Of course gas stations were placed with similar concerns and are sometimes similarly out of the way or in depressed areas, but there are a lot more of them and some better-located ones exist, due to history / path-dependency.
That's nonsense though. Yes cost/space was a factor but it's not like they built the first one in the absolute cheapest acre they good find, then put the second one in the second cheapest...
Proximity to amenities, to neighborhoods with high ev ownership, distance to the nearest charging station, traffic etc... Dozens of factors.
Meanwhile of course: will women (~50% of the population) be willing to use this is itself an economic consideration.
What is nonsense is the supposed expert's failure to discuss "Proximity to amenities, to neighborhoods with high ev ownership, distance to the nearest charging station, traffic etc... Dozens of factors.", as you mention.
These are all factors that can be readily encompassed under the heading of economics and available space.
The best situated, safest, cheapest and most desirable locations for fueling vehicles are already occupied by gas stations. There is nothing that women can do about that, just by looking at the situation differently -- that's the nonsense underlying the expert's commentary.
> It's not simply that men are not thinking about women
You're thinking about it wrong, like it's some kind of blame. It's "if the primary decision makers were women this would have been a showstopping problem" with something completely different needing to take its place.
You're one decision too far in the logic, "given everything about the existing design of charging stations where should we place them" when it would have been, "good lord we're designing these things to be unattended and put in garages and parking lots. Yikes. A woman visibly broadcasting that she's immobile in an isolated location for 30 minutes at night -- good plan, I see no problems with this."
You're thinking about it all wrong, like it's some kind of blame.
Seeing a problem and fixing a problem are two completely different things. Seeing a problem is a mental exercise, fixing a problem is an economic exercise. In this case, fixing the problem involves "just" buying, leasing, or otherwise occupying the most expensive premium public real estate. There's nothing "just" about this idea. It's expensive AF, and the person who wants more safety than current infrastructure can offer also wants lower prices than infrastructure can offer. How do you propose to square this circle? Where does the money come from?
Shouting "showstopper!" is not an answer, but fortunately the EV movement has a plan, one that will actually work. They plan to first address the needs of enthusiasts who are willing to put up with high prices and patchy infrastructure, and then use that money & mindshare to fill in the infrastructure to serve everyone else, both through destination charging (so you don't have to sit with the car) and through gargantuan factories that can drive the economics of scale to compete on lower price brackets.
Blaming men for not building this all yesterday is a bit silly. It'll happen. It's been the goal since 2006. There was no way to make it happen yesterday, but it will happen tomorrow. Patience.
Clearly we're talking past one another. There's no blame. The fact that women would have designed this system significantly differently to account for our specific needs is not blaming men for not doing that. But then you have to be willing to say, "yeah, the product as it currently exists is expected to be unpopular with women and we're fine with that right now."
Like it's not hard too imagine a world where the rollout was to partner with gas stations and 24 hour convenience stores/restaurants where there are lights, people, and cameras.
Why would women have designed the process any differently if economics were the driving factor?
This is a roll-out; women are just as proficient with difficult finance decisions as men even when those decisions don't make initial conditions ideal for women.
Why would "economics" be the sole, or driving, factor, without anybody in the room to say "Hey, roughly 50% of the potential market is not going to use any charging location they deem unsafe, and in fact if we don't work hard to provide a lot of safe charging locations, the entire market size is going to be constrained?"
The women described are making rational choices here. Safety is paramount. The market isn't currently for them, and the people who have created the status quo have done so foolishly, because there weren't enough women in the room when these decisions were made.
* If 50% will use it, then it still might be a good buy at a low enough price.
* The desirable, safe, &c locations for fueling cars are for the most part already occupied by gas stations, so it might be that there are only a few locations available that 100% will use. It is rational to obtain those few and then add locations that 50% will use to reduce load on the locations that 100% will use.
The idea that women in the room would have changed this is not plausible, because the constraints are not any different for women planners in this situation than for men planners.
Not sure if it will change anybody's thinking, but perception on this issue of danger is interesting since men are more likely to be the victim of violent crime than women.
That being said, (as a dude) there are gas stations I won't stop at for even 3 minutes, let alone 30.
Downvotes shall come and that's ok-- but it's really interesting how radically different the experience of filling gas is for men and women. I've had multiple conversations with female friends where they discuss factoring in personal safety and the chance of being bothered while filling gas. It's a captive situation and hard to leave quickly. Aside from the odd request for money, I don't get bothered while filling gas, but that's not true for many many people.
Interestingly enough, if a women can charge at home and doesn't do alot of distant driving, they can cut gas stations out of their life completely with an EV along with predatory mechanics during routine maintenance.
That second bit is a criminally underserved market. It's fucking stupid that I have to call one of my guy friends to go to the mechanic with me and pretend to be my boyfriend so I don't get ripped off.
If anyone figures out how to align the incentives you'll have a customer base basically immediately.
As a guy who gets attempts at being ripped off by mechanics (unnecessary work coming very highly recommended), my solution was not to somehow introduce more masculinity, but to educate myself by hanging out on forums specific to whatever car I'm driving, and mix a bit of that education into the conversation with the shop, bordering on what could come across as knowledge bragging. For example, while waiting for work to finish, I'll watch a video on something it ostensibly needs and then bring up the fact that I did and might DIY it. Typically the service writer will then be on my side instead of seeing me as a money tree, and the frequency of ridiculous recommended work after that drops to almost nothing. Ymmv and indeed people will write posts on those forums with male salutations for no apparent reason, but otherwise that's where I found the truth.
Which is great! You only had to exert a bunch of extra effort, and it sounds like you've enjoyed the results.
Now read some stories from women who've also made that extra effort and then some, having more experience and knowledge than the mechanics trying to rip them off, and still being given the runaround more often than not.
A shady mechanic will be shady to some degree to everyone to the degree they think they can get away with it. No amount of self-education on the part of women lets them escape the shadiness.
Whenever people talk about restaurants completely replacing staff with robots/kiosks I get the same safety fears. I wouldn’t stop at a McDonald’s on a road trip if it didn’t have any staff. More people, like staff, equal more social pressure for potential bad players to act appropriately.
Which is a reason to put them in places where the occupants can get out in a relatively safe place and either be productive (store parking lots) or entertained (zoo).
Yet those are where most 1st gen chargers were placed, and are the same places the quoted woman in the article is complaining about.
Yes they're less convenient, but so is charging an EV (compared to refueling). Until charging only takes 5-10 mins, the best way to offset inconvenience of time is to place chargers in places where you can multitask.
Does HN just not pay attention? Women get hit on, talked up, harassed, pretty much every place they go. Men seem to think it is their right to do this. So, yeah, women want to feel safe.
"People who harass certain types of people will harass those people" just doesn't convey much information, so it's not worth saying. Any thoughts on how to best phrase this pattern?
If approximately half of the population is at all afraid to exist in public, then maybe your feelings getting hurt about sweeping statements is a little less important in the grand scheme of things.
You may not feel safe, but "safer" is a comparison word, and I'm not sure on what basis you claim to feel as unsafe as a woman would in the same situation.
Do you also fear being sexually assaulted every time you walk to your car in a dark parking garage?
Are you often sexually harassed in public spaces?
An un-housed person asking you for cash at a gas station doesn't put your experience on par with what women experience every day.
I knew the answer in the article was safety before I read it. We live in a society where women feel unsafe in normal situations us men never even consider.
Moving the goalposts from sexual harassment to violent crime doesn't change reality. I don't know any men who fear violent crime every time they step foot out of the house, unless they are actively involved in a lifestyle that tends to violent crime. Most women I know fear sexual harassment and worse every time they step foot out of the house.
Violent crime includes sexual assault and rape. And the GP post is a man discussing his experiences with aggressive panhandling, which can escalate into an assault or attempted mugging. My point is that perceptions of risk and societal willingness to acknowledge risk differs between men and women. Men are incentivized to play down risks to their personal safety to save face, while the dynamic is reversed for women.
As to how this relates to the overall discussion, I'd suspect that men and women have similar safety concerns, but men are just more likely to lie about it on surveys.
> I'd suspect that men and women have similar safety concerns, but men are just more likely to lie about it on surveys.
Talk to more women, I'd say.
I have been scared in my life, and I have known many men I would describe as being generally-fearful people, but I have never met any man who spent as much of their life considering physical safety as one of their highest priorities every single day of their lives, and I have talked to many women who describe that feeling in different words.
I think it's good to acknowledge that men can be, and sometimes are, scared. But I think you do a disservice to both men and women when you look at "violent crime" stats (skewed heavily by gang activity most of us will never encounter regardless of gender) and believe that men and women are generally equally concerned about safety. That flies in the face of the experiences of nearly everyone, I think.
Put another way: there are some neighborhoods in which I would not like to walk alone at night, but I have never once worried about being attacked while walking for exercise in a tony suburb in the afternoon. Any time I've encountered a woman while doing so, they would cross the street, be holding keys in their hands, or both. I don't think I'm a scary-looking guy, but as an unknown man they encountered, even in a tony suburb in the afternoon, concern for their safety prompted them to take action.
You don't have to believe me, and I can't convince you. But if you ever listen to women, read women, or even believe the comments you see on this page from women, you might just understand life a little more.
> and I have talked to many women who describe that feeling in different words.
This illustrates my exact point - you are basing your opinion on the number of people who have opened up to you about their feelings. Men in general don't do that, especially when it involves fear and vulnerability.
> But I think you do a disservice to both men and women when you look at "violent crime" stats (skewed heavily by gang activity most of us will never encounter regardless of gender)
Inter-gang violence is definitely overrepresented in murder and shooting stats, but I doubt it has much of an impact on general violent crime stats. Gang members typically don't call the cops when they are victims of crimes, and are unlikely to answer crime victimization surveys from the government.
> Any time I've encountered a woman while doing so, they would cross the street, be holding keys in their hands, or both.
That isn't normal. Either the women in your neighborhood listen to way too many true crime podcasts, or you are scarier looking than you think.
> But if you ever listen to women, read women, or even believe the comments you see on this page from women, you might just understand life a little more.
The condescension really is not needed or constructive.
You don't know me nor the men I've talked to. I have had deep meaningful conversations about fears and vulnerability with many men, and they almost never involved physical safety. Conversations about shame, and emotional pain, and fear of failure and being perceived as weak, yes. About being attacked on the street, almost never.
You doubt, and you suspect, and you believe. More than three-quarters of rapes and sexual assaults are not reported[0]. Violent crimes involving injury, or murder, are reported by the medical personnel involved. When you rely on one set of statistics to negate widespread fears, and ignore all reports or statistics that support them, you don't end up with a clear view of things.
The experiences I describe are 100% normal in suburbs all around America. It's not just once or twice, and I'm not the only man to have noticed this.
If you don't want condescension, base your opinions on facts rather than counter-factual beliefs and feelings. I'm linking to statistics and reports, and you're parroting stereotypical generalizations countered by comments from women on this very page.
I am taking your statements at face value, but at this point it is starting to honestly feel like you're trolling, so carry on.
I'm the one who gave hard numbers showing that men make up the majority of victims of violent crime, which you tried to handwave away by blaming gang members...
Agreed that this discussion is going nowhere useful though.
All I have is 47 years of life experience and in those years not once has a male friend or acquaintance asked if I could walk them to their car, follow them home, or pretend to be their SO because they felt unsafe in a public situation. The number is significantly higher when I switch the context to female friends.
If you want to play red pill semantic games around it's not safe for men either, I pity you and the lack of empathy and understanding you have.
As a 47 year old man, would you feel comfortable asking another man to walk you to your car or follow you home? Or would the social embarrassment of violating cultural norms for men outweigh the perceived safety risk? It is not a "red pill" argument to point out that cultural norms for displaying vulnerability and weakness are different for men and for women.
I would and I have. I used to frequent dive bars in sketch neighborhoods and I wouldn't even step out for a smoke without someone else. In college we would regularly group up for walks back from downtown.
It's also very infrequent where the thought of my personal safety crosses my mind in locations like malls, rest stops and gas stations. I've never felt the need to carry pepper spray or a weapon. I've never used my keys as improvised brass knuckles to cross a dimly lit parking lot.
I stroll the world as a master with all the privilege afforded to six foot tall white male.
downvotes shall come because this is HN, but that's ok...
perhaps it's time to admit that modern western ideals are not compatible with the natural laws embedded in our body by several hundred thousand years of evolution...
I'm someone who's been suffering for years because of some trashy people who do whatever they want without considering their impact on others.
I'm not saying it's beautiful. I'm saying it's how life works. Don't like it? stop bringing new people in this world. That's what I'm doing.
About most people not doing it: first, it's a lie; there's a huge amount of rape hidden away in homes. Second: people don't do it because they are scared of the other people with guns and cages; which proves my point that might makes right in the real world.
What? I don't want to misinterpret you, so what are you actually saying? Because it sounds like an argument to switch to a Handmaid's Tale-like society.
I feel that I have the right to be friendly to every person I see in almost every situation I'm in, including starting to chat with them. If they seem receptive I would feel that I have the right to escalate to flirting ... and then stop if it's not well received. With those provisos I see the time and place for sexual pursuit as most times and most places. But if the other person is not friendly and responsive, and you pursue the "chat up" or flirtation anyhow, that's not right regardless of time or place.
> With those provisos I see the time and place for sexual pursuit as most times and most places.
But if collectively, women are saying, no it is not most times and most places, you're in the wrong.
Look, it's really simple. If you want a better chance of meeting someone who might be receptive to your flirting, you do it when they're feeling safe and secure.
This is a strange framing of the situation. It's not one specific demographic that isn't buying electric cars. Most people of any demographic aren't buying electric cars.
Men disproportionally buy electric cars because they disproportionately buy cars for reasons other than pure practicality.
But this isn't some "problem for women". Men who DGAF about electric cars and just want basic transportation also have the same problem: they are not yet competitive as basic transportation.
> Men disproportionally buy electric cars because they disproportionately buy cars for reasons other than pure practicality.
Yeah and they're also leaving out that the men typically buy electric because they are insanely fast, have low 0-60 times and is something new to modify and tweak on. The aftermarket parts and tuning options are currently exploding in popularity with the same consumer base even with the manufacturers locked down ecosystem.
You think women should be encouraged to modify their cars to look like race cars? Maybe they just have more practical concerns in life, or hobbies that aren't as dangerous.
I meant rip down the notion that it's not ladylike (for lack of a better way to describe the reason for the unbalance among genders) to be into cars/tinkering/tech/etc.
For a huge portion of the us car-driving population, new cars are not affordable at all. For a huge portion of the people who buy new cars, they cannot afford vehicles over 35k. The RAV4 and Camry are the best selling non-truck new vehicles in the US, and they have no EV competition at their price.
So, you're only looking at new prices and ignoring the ridiculous prices that people pay to drive huge, four door trucks to their office job?
You're being intentionally obtuse.
There's a federal tax credit for electric cars. The Chevy Bolt is $27k. The VW ID.4 is around $32k after the federal credit. There are a whole bunch more.
Regardless, the original point is that EVs aren't practical, and that's not true except for apartment dwellers. The US is covered in suburbs of single family homes and the average commute distance is 41 miles round trip. Electric vehicles are practical.
Yes, EVs are practical, in a general sense. But buyers don't make purchasing decisions based on everyone's average needs, they make them based on their own specific needs. Concerns of practicality are not entirely boolean, and are why we don't all drive one single model of car -- people have different needs.
I really want to buy an EV. I have a single family home. And my average commute is < 10 miles per day. I'm the perfect candidate, right? Well, I live in a cold climate, and I drive 150+ miles most weekends. And once per month I take a 300 mile trip, one way, with no charger at my destination.
It is possible to do these drives? Yes. I can get a Bolt and cross my fingers that the Electrify America charger I need is operational. But for the same or similar price I could get a Prius/Corolla/Camry/Accord Hybrid which would provide a better experience overall for that specific use case. And everything around the drivetrain is also well built.
But if you still insist that my use case is silly, and most people can get around just fine in a Bolt, I propose this: Most people can get around just fine in a Versa/Accent/Rio/Mirage for $10K less than the Bolt, too.
I think you're missing the underlying point, which is that electric cars are arguably better for the environment, which is a problem for all of us, so if women aren't buying electric cars, that's an environmental problem.
The article literally says "Environment & Climate" right above the title.
The author: "Gender, climate and sustainability reporter"
"Fast forward to today, and despite the fact that consumer choices viewed as more environmentally minded are stereotyped as feminine, men actually make up the majority of electric car drivers."
You found the one sentence in the article that mentions the environment. And it is there to mention the authors surprise that it is not the primary driving factor of people purchasing behaviors. As it turns out, people can care about things that they are not willing or able to personally affect.
I too will answer that I care about climate change in any opinion or political poll. However, I am currently emitting CO2 to heat my home, eat my lunch, and post this comment. I simply do not have the practical means to do otherwise.
Context matters, and in this case the context includes several references you glossed over, the category under which this was published, and oh yeah, the fact that one of the prime selling points for EVs is helping the environment by eliminating combustion engines.
... it's like asking why women don't buy muscle cars; funny though, I have a model that, given a headline, predicts the ratio of comments/upvotes. The more cerebral things I post sometimes get a lot of votes but few comments, but one of the themes my model thinks will get a lot of comments is anything about "the battle of the sexes". The average post has a ratio of about 0.5, this one is already above 1.0 and will probably keep going up.
> The results? “Men like toys, and women were more likely to talk about electric vehicles in terms of their practical use within the day-to-day of getting stuff done,” he said.
So right now electric isn't worth the price difference for what it delivers. Men buy it because it is trendy, women don't care about tech trends so they wait until the technology is more mature.
> Men buy it because it is trendy, women don't care about tech trends so they wait until the technology is more mature.
I don't think it's nearly as clearcut as that, but rather, we are at an inflection point where preference patterns are being sorted out again.
Many women who have access to home charging already drive electric, but they tend to be much more well off and suburban. I personally know a some low to moderate income women who would like to drive an EV but can't afford one yet, new or used.
Many men are also trendiness-averse. A large part of it also has to do with social signaling, i.e. do you live in an area that is generally pro-petroleum or anti-petroleum.
> So right now electric isn't worth the price difference for what it delivers.
This depends on what you value. As you illustrate with your explanation of why men buy it, which is one explanation among many.
If you prefer avoiding the mechanic, or want to pay less over the lifetime of your car, or you anticipate, while contemplating a long-term purchase, that the ICE infrastructure becoming more expensive and less reliable, or you want to reduce your personal carbon footprint, or most of your trips are local and you can charge at home, etc., electric cars are already worth the price difference.
> Does a Bolt or Model 3 really impress a woman (or anyone for that matter)? The Model 3 is supposedly called the California Camry after all.
It's pretty impossible to generalize about what impresses women, but the "drive a luxury car" method sort of lost its charm sometime around the turn of the 21st century.
> The couple had another big consideration in planning their travels: Personal safety. (...) Waiting to charge a car can take much longer than filling one up with gas.
That was my regularly scheduled reminder that, no matter how hard I try to keep other people's perspectives in mind, I still have blind spots. In retrospect it's obvious — there's plenty of service stations I can't imagine feeling safe at if I was a woman, alone and just waiting for my car to charge up.
I'm sure that when a woman rolls up to a gas or charging station with a meandering crackhead or weird lurker, she can comfort herself by repeating the mantra "79% of homicide victims are male".
I think this effect is almost entirely gang members assassinating other gang members, which is not something the background population actually experiences (for the most part).
You would need to find statistics on sexual and non-sexual assault, theft, robbery and so on in quiet areas on above-average-income people, and compare the rates for men and women.
People are murdered for different reasons than those that contribute to women often feeling unsafe in some situations. There’s a whole spectrum of situations ranging from unpleasant to violent that don’t rise to the level of actual murder.
Years ago, a local skinhead and his buddies surrounded a car being driven by an Asian woman and began screaming at her to go back to her country. This is in an utterly dull suburban environment.
In the SF Bay area, I regularly had to deal with dudes approaching me at the pump to beg for money, often berating me for turning them away.
Recently, there was a car-jacking at a local gas station. Again, utterly dull suburban USA.
Stuff happens all the time whether you experience it or not. Sometimes it's violent, other times it just feels like it could turn violent. Most times it's not recorded in any static.
Its an interesting trade off. I'd argue that if you don't plan to road trip your car, and have home charging, an EV is actually far safer in terms of crime, since you never need to go to a gas station.
However, on road trips, I've charged at lots of Tesla Superchargers where even I, as a CIS male, feel a bit uncomfortable. Eg, random mall / grocery store parking lots at 3am, where nothing is open, the lighting is poor, etc.
EDIT: The other consideration is that while you're charging, you have to get out of the vehicle to unook from the charger. Eg, the car will not go into drive while the cable is attached. So that does not leave you any options if an attacker approaches your car while charging.
> Its an interesting trade off. I'd argue that if you don't plan to road trip your car, and have home charging, an EV is actually far safer in terms of crime, since you never need to go to a gas station.
Only for people living in Suburbia.
Not sure about the percentage of people owning a car and a garage / or at least private parking space close to a private outlet in the USA, but here in europe this is still a huge limiter for EV. If I need to charge my vehicule in only a handful of the available parking spaces with charging station available in my neighborhood, the EV proposal becomes substancially less attractive, both in term of practicability and financially.
There are only two types of entities that buy cars: human persons and corporate persons. Currently the US government is subsidizing EV purchases for both groups a little bit. There's a $7500 tax credit for human persons (with restrictions) but corporate persons get a $40000 tax credit without restrictions. Some persons are more equal than others.
Huh? The tax credit for small vehicles is the same for both at $7500. The $40k credit is only for large trucks, capped at 30% of the vehicle’s value, and with all of the same restrictions.
That's a misframing of a story about gender differences in purchasing, one that seems to go out of its way to avoid addressing the point that roadside safety is a greater concern for some buyers than others.
I’m guessing it’s just the section 179 deduction, filtered through the internet. I’ve seen a lot of misinformation about section 179 deductions online. People mix up deductions with credits, get the numbers wrong, and they aren’t aware of depreciation recapture. These are errors I’ve seen in TikTok videos with “advice” for saving money on taxes—advice which usually either won’t work or will actually land you in jail.
I had never thought of the (perceived or real) increased risk connected with (longer) stays at the gas station (or charging station) in remote areas at night.
But now that the article mentioned it, it does make sense that people don't want to find themselves in this situation and plan trips so that charging happens during the day.
> More importantly, those who buy electric cars tend to own their homes, meaning they can install chargers and plug in their cars overnight, negating the need to use a public charger for day-to-day commutes. For women and people of color, who are less likely to own homes and are more likely to live in multifamily dwellings where charging stations are often not part of the parking infrastructure, charging their cars becomes an additional task.
This seems like the biggest practical reason to me. With homeownership getting difficult due to skyrocketing prices and interest rates, having a gas car is just much more reliable compared to the hit-and-miss experience with electric.
As a concrete example, there is a ~40 mile gap between charging stations in the relatively well-populated area near me, and the same area contains about ten gas stations. I would not advise any friends of mine in the area to rely on electric charge being widely or safely available -- this just tends to get magnified for anyone who has more of a reason to worry about their safety.
imho BEVs are not the solution. give me a tiny battery (PHEV) that can go 50 miles on a charge during the winter and gas. From the Volt, many users on reddit reported that over 90% of their miles were entirely electric. at the same time, they don't have to have range anxiety.
I hear over and over again about the supposed complexity introduced, but Volt users who switched to the Bolt on reddit mention that they haven't seen big differences in maintenance costs.
The FUD about hybrids is insane. I've yet to read anything convincing enough to lead me that BEV is better than PHEV.
The FUD about hybrids is insane. I've yet to read anything convincing enough to lead me that BEV is better than PHEV.
I have noticed that the more intense the issue, the more radicalize, high polarized, even lies, emerge.
People should be overwhelmed with joy, happiness, that people want hybrids, it gets those who literally cannot use pure electric, to use electric ... as you say, 90% of the time.
A win-win!
People even relentlessly shoot down h2, with all sorts of made up claims and anger. Yet h2 is better than these massive, heavy, hard to recycle battery packs.
There should be happiness at anything that is a line towards less pollution. But no. There are angry camps of "my choice is perfect, and I must deny you your choice!" camps.
Right now we don't have enough lithium production to get to 100% EV. Until we do, we should focus on PHEVs instead. With 1/10th the battery capacity, they can handle 90% of trips. With the batteries of one EV we can build 10 PHEVs. One EV reduces fuel consumption by 100%. Ten PHEVs reduce fuel consumption by 10 x 90% = 900%. The other benefit is that PHEVs don't have range anxiety. Why is everyone so focused on EVs over PHEVs? I currently have an HEV and plan to buy a PHEV when it needs replaced.
Toyota has statistics for PHEV's. Majority of users in USA and EU (>70%) don't charge(at least once per week) them at all. Most of the time they just use gasoline and treat them like hybrid car and charge them when there is a benefit (e-car parking spot, etc)
I don't know what percentage of PHEVs can charge at 120v but some can and it seems crazy if some can't because they have 1/10th the battery capacity of an EV and thus can charge in 1/10th the time at 240v but 1/5th the time at 120v, which would be feasible for a full charge within 12 hours, which is sufficient for many people's needs.
I’d have to imagine a combination of more chargers, faster chargers, denser batteries (aka less charging), and very well lit areas will be needed to make female drivers feel safer. I’m not sure though. Perhaps we will see the gas station attendant make a comeback?
I think perceived personal safety is also why women prefer large cars. Women, in my observation, tend to think larger car equates safer car (and they also feel more powerful operating larger machine). Whereas men tend to buy larger cars as a status symbol. And will by smaller cars, too, if they still convey status.
And while it actually seems true that larger cars are safer to drive, it is pretty ironic that more larger cars on roads actually decrease safety among all drivers.
It's also ironic that women vote to prioritize environmental issues consistently more than men. This apparently doesn't matter as much when it comes to their personal decisions to buy an EV!
We do not know if it is the same women who buy EVs and vote to prioritise environmental issues. And because we do not know that, your conclusion seems to be invalid.
I don't know where you come from or what your beliefs are. But if you determined to disregard all logic and still try to win some argument then you are just an internet troll.
To have a discussion at all of any kind we need basic assumptions on communication protocol and logic is one of key ingredients.
My original comment was about irony and it should have been obvious that it was subjective: no assertion to prove or disprove. I genuinely have no idea what you're attempting to argue with me about.
I'm shocked that area where they were traveling is so dangerous you have to choose places from security perspective. From European perspective it's crazy that you have to think about your security when taking car stop..
I didn't read the article, but it's not necessarily that places are dangerous. The US has many gas stations that are in remote areas, completely unattended at night, and very poorly lit. For someone who's concerned about safety, especially if they've been on the receiving end of harassment or attacks before, they will naturally try to avoid such locations.
Car trips can feel very sketchy when you're in the middle of nowhere, late at night, potentially with small children. Imagine a dimly lit rest stop late at night with two cars at it. Can you trust the people in these cars or is there potential criminal activity? While I disagree with the framing of the article, I do agree with the author on security concerns.
I have a feeling your opinion is biased by place you live. In my country (Poland) beeing in a remote parking with other cars gives me security comfort, that I'm not alone :)
On the other hand you have 54x bigger chances to get raped and 30x beeing murdered in USA than in Poland ..
I never understood why people care so much about buying electric cars vs number of kms / miles put into it.
They are more expensive to manufacture, but cheaper to use, therefore I believe at this point all taxis / Ubers should be electric. Maybe if Elon didn't push ,,self driving'' so hard and just thought about all the needs of taxi companies (maintainance guarantees), we wouldn't have as many car sales, but the charge points and maintainance (which can have higher margins than traditional cars as it is cheaper) would make up for it, and air in cities would be much cleaner already.
EV's are still new tech. they haven't been through the cruicble of time yet. people are waiting to see how long those batteries last. it's common knowledge everytime you recharge a battery you destroy it bit by bit until it finally no longer holds a charge.
And I think we have a tendency to dismiss absolutely atrocious experiences with generic errors and opaque UIs where the troubleshooting path is entirely tribal knowledge as "people who aren't technologically adept" when it's really just a complete and total failure on the part of the technology provider.
* If the pump at a gas station is broken they put up a sign and cover the nozzle.
* It works with every car without an adapter. These things should have a fallback to a wall-plug since every electric car has one. Yeah, it will take forever but it will work.
* The default experience assumes no account required and if there's an account it's a barcode scannable rewards card or phone number entry.
* If you don't have NFC payments you can use any credit card in existence and if that doesn't work you can walk into the shop to a human who can charge your card inside, take cash, or run a manual entry credit card by typing in the numbers and if all else fails just manually override the pump.
* The entire process of selecting your the kind of gas you want is standard physical buttons with a screen that displays the price and lights up to indicate that that's the next action.
* The transaction doesn't finish until you put the nozzle back so it's impossible to mess up.
It's truly amazing how the people who designed these horrible plastic atrocities learned absolutely nothing from the current state-of-the-art. Vending machines have better UX.
This feels like a tipping point problem where, once we hit a tipping point of available charging locations, there could be a snowball of currently-disenfranchised people buying EVs.
Women have a hand in the purchase decision of more than half the cars (ever see those stupid ads TV for luxury sedans where a couple goes down the list of "standard" features and pick a car on the basis of that?)
If you want to sell a handful of exotic cars then it is OK to target men. If you are going to make a mass-market vehicle that changes the world it has to have a broader appeal.
A family member who is somewhat of a fanatical cycling commuter was telling me recently that in the area he lives they deliberately ignore data from males in their 20s/30s (his demographic) when making decisions about bike infrastructure usage because they are more likely to commit to biking even if the conditions are terrible. To be clear, I think he was saying this more as an endorsement of this attitude (and as a personal brag) than a complaint.
Range anxiety is one of those terms like vaccine hesitancy that is designed to blame the victim, rather than be forced to address a root cause and be more persuasive.
Using the word anxiety specifically to target women seems especially sinister
I don't see why this is downvoted. Of course there are no nonbinary people in data sets for male and female. They're nonbinary. It's weird that the article calls this out explicitly.
and they go to work as a software developer or a quant or something like that.
People who are less gifted in realm of logic and reasoning go to humanities and become talkers - manager, gender reporters and do other jobs that require using trendy keywords without understanding the difference between correlation and causation.
Downvotes indicate there are a lot of these people on HN.
You think HN is filled with people from the humanities fields? That would be odd. At minimum I think it’s fair to say that HN has a majority that don’t. In which case, if that dictated their views, your post should be net positive on votes. Instead I think it’s more likely that plenty of HN folks that work in STEM fields have also known people who are very smart that don’t work in such fields.
Being good at something doesn’t automatically make a person go into that for their career.
>You think HN is filled with people from the humanities fields?
You are right.
>known people who are very smart that don’t work in such fields.
True.
But the whole framing of the article is nonsense including a job title of "Gender, climate and sustainability reporter".
Which makes me doubt intellectual and/or ethical capacity of people who downvoted/supported this nonsense and whole gender war agenda.
Early charging stations in the United States have been placed in inconvenient places, too. Andrea Colomina, the sustainable communities program director at Green Latinos, said one of the first locations to get a charger in New York City was the parking lot of a zoo.
“The first generation [of charging stations] was really not holistically thought out. As usual, because men were making most of the decisions, they were not walking through the scenarios,” she said. “You have to think through what is the experience of every potential user.”
What is obviously missing from this discussion, is that economic factors and available space drive decisions like this. It's not simply that men are not thinking about women. Colomina is quoted as some kind of expert, but she is just offering bromides and commonplaces, nothing specifically related to factors that drove the early placement of charging stations.