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Common Perceptions of EVs

1457 Views 2 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  Greenflight, 
KiwiEV
There was a "Your Views" article on the New Zealand Herald's website today.
It asked people what it would take to switch to a green car.

There were many good questions and some logic displayed, and as always, there were many who spoke before thinking.

I got a kick out of the article as it reinforced my view that common perception of electric vehicles is that they are all slow and mostly unpleasant to look at.

Some of the quotes from the article:

"Simple -just make sure they look good, instead of the poxy looking designs"

and

I'd change to a green car if it didn't actually look like a green car! What is it with the designers of these vehicles? Why can I not have a kick-arse looking car that is green?

and one more,

I would look at changing to a green car when:
1. They stop looking so bloody stupid, that Toyota Prius is the ugliest thing on wheels.
2. They are cost effective. They cost far too much for what they deliver.
3. They are capable of towing a boat, taking heavy loads to the tip and have enough boot space to compare with my current Holden S/W.
4. They perform properly. Slow cars are dangerous in my opinion.

So the common perception hasn't changed yet. This is good news for Big Oil and auto makers, but sad news for those of us battling that perception.

The biggest complaint is range. Many complain that even an EV with a 200km range (120 miles) is just too low. Of course none of those people drive half that distance - the average daily distance for Kiwis is less than 38km (23 miles) per day, but still many drivers seem want the option of long distance travel for unknown reasons.

It encourages me to get the car finished, get it on the road and get people talking about breaking their oil addictions.
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rbgrn

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#2 ·
Re: Common Perceptions of EV's

The whole problem with range is that when people buy a car, they want to know that it will cover 100% of their possible uses. So even if they only drive 30 miles per day 96% of the time, they don't want to rent an ICE or anything for the other 4% of the time, even if it's cheaper.

That's what I plan on doing because it's still much cheaper! I'm still without an EV, but once I have one, it'll be my city car and I'll just rent for driving out of the city, or I'll keep my civic beater and take that on trips.
 
Greenflight

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372 Posts
#3 ·
Re: Common Perceptions of EV's

Ya know, I don't know if others have noticed this, but most people have somewhat of a "specialty car" already. I know a lot of folks who have a smaller car for commuting and a truck for hauling. I've never seen anybody try to tow a boat with their commuter.

It's not that much of an adjustment to drive an EV when you have more than one car.

But yeah, a lot of citicars and stuff are kind of ugly (maybe not ugly, just not "normal"), but I always thought the Prius looked pretty nice. ;)
 
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