The public charging infrastructure is a weak spot, to be sure. There still remains a lot of improvement to be done on that front.
However, the severity of that issue depends on the owner. For me and how I would use an electric vehicle, I would charge it at home. I would rarely, if ever, need to use a public charging station. What's more, the normal driving I would do would not come close to (actually less than half of) the published range of any current EV. So, I simply would almost never need a public charging station.
I have a friend who has had a Tesla for a few years, and that is the same experience he has. He hardly ever pulls into a public charging station. It is all done from home.
But, for more in-town dwellers who may have to park in a parking lot, or the street, this could be a real issue, so my situation wouldn't apply to them. It really comes down to the individual user. There are some practical situations for which I think EV ownership is not a good idea at this time.
This brings up the electricity needed to charge an EV. The drastic figures often cited about how much electricity it takes to charge an EV are assuming a fully-depleted battery. So, that is essentially using a worst-case scenario, not actual case. In most cases, people aren't charging a fully-depleted battery. They will "top up" a battery when getting home for the day. So, the actual electricity consumed on a day-to-day basis will be far from the worst-case, fully-depleted, scenario.
But, even this depends on an individual user's own situation.
However, the severity of that issue depends on the owner. For me and how I would use an electric vehicle, I would charge it at home. I would rarely, if ever, need to use a public charging station. What's more, the normal driving I would do would not come close to (actually less than half of) the published range of any current EV. So, I simply would almost never need a public charging station.
I have a friend who has had a Tesla for a few years, and that is the same experience he has. He hardly ever pulls into a public charging station. It is all done from home.
But, for more in-town dwellers who may have to park in a parking lot, or the street, this could be a real issue, so my situation wouldn't apply to them. It really comes down to the individual user. There are some practical situations for which I think EV ownership is not a good idea at this time.
This brings up the electricity needed to charge an EV. The drastic figures often cited about how much electricity it takes to charge an EV are assuming a fully-depleted battery. So, that is essentially using a worst-case scenario, not actual case. In most cases, people aren't charging a fully-depleted battery. They will "top up" a battery when getting home for the day. So, the actual electricity consumed on a day-to-day basis will be far from the worst-case, fully-depleted, scenario.
But, even this depends on an individual user's own situation.



