this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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All the messaging about fast charging speed is focused on the wrong thing. EV drivers should be able to do the vast majority of their charging at home or at their destination. The messaging should be about getting chargers in more homes, apartment complexes and workplaces. Speed doesn't matter as much if you're going to be parked for half the day or overnight. That's something that gas simply can't do.
Fast charging stations should only be necessary for road trips, where you should be taking a break every so often anyways.
One doesn't have anything to do with the other. Fast chargers ARE for road trips. And we can improve them irrespective of L2 chargers. Where are you seeing "messaging" that suggests otherwise?
The fact that so many people don't think about this or are unaware shows how well the propaganda worked.
Here is a car that is by far the easiest car you'll ever own, the power to run it is the cheapest you'll ever see, and 99% of your trips will be within one charge/tank meaning you'll never need to worry about range ever - but the propaganda convinced them all that that's a deal breaker.
As an EV owner the road trips we take are the vast minority of driving anymore. When we do there are options.
A year later, we still haven’t even gotten a 240V fast charger at home. Still just pluggin’ in to the old wall with a regular old cord. We still manage to get all the charging we need done during the cheap-metered hours, too.
I laugh when I think back to buying the EV. I was so panicked about getting fast charger as soon as possible. I thought the wall plug would get us through the weekend while we tried to find an available electrician, but then we’d get desperate. It just never happened.
After 100k miles in an EV, road trips add about 20 minutes for every every 3 hours of driving. That's all. It's basically a trivial difference which gets statistically lost in the noise of traffic variability. If this causes an issue, it's a lack of prior planning.
I fully agree with you, but you should check out the rest off this thread. I have someone who literally said:
I'm unwilling to plan out two 20 minute stops in my day long road trip that happens maybe once or twice a year in order to have the lowest maintenance lowest fuel cost vehicle I have ever owned. Not to mention the other two options if you seriously cannot do it. People are so carbrained/gas brained I just can't even. I will never go back to owning an ICE vehicle, literally why would you?
I can't help but feel if EVs were invented first, convincing people to adopt gas cars would be impossible.
Also, that place is disgusting and you have to step over the rotting corpse of 600 soft drinks poured out next to the pump, then touch a handle which is visibly soiled and often sticky, and then you will probably smell like gas for at least the next 20 minutes.
"those fluid is VERY flammable, it's insane people wanted to sit above one"
"it stink when it's running."
“the wear and tear from containing thousands of internal explosions will inevitably wear parts down over time.”
"leave it running in a closed garage and it will kill you in minutes with poison gas"
The saddest part is that EVs were invented first, but it was easier to tanker fuel everywhere, rather than building out the electric grid in low-density areas.
Tbf, battery tech was also shit back then.
Many people fail to appreciate just how much consumer battery technology has improved, in their lifetime.
Yes. And another thing people don’t appreciate is that gas always had the inherent advantage in that the oxidizing agent is just sitting around wherever you go. You don’t even need to carry all the chemical agents. If gas cars had to carry around their own oxidizer like rockets do, batteries would have surpassed them long ago.
First, just to be pedantic, EVs did exist first. They go all the way back to the early 1800s. But battery technology didn't advance enough to make them a good option until recently, so your point remains.
I fully agree with you that the only thing keeping gasoline going is inertia. There have been parodies applying the same logic to other fields, like the gas-powered phone.
There's a reason why 80%+ of EV owners say they'll never go back, and a good chunk of the remainder are just waiting on the field to mature a bit.
EVs still use brake pads. lol
Also electric cars, gas, and steam has a bit of a format war in the 1890’s-1920’s or so, and people really did make a lot of these points back then. Unreliable and sometimes unsafe chargers (basically due to people not understanding electrical engineering as well as we do now) were a big part of why gasoline won out
EV brake pads can last a lot longer on one pedal cars. Henry Ford's wife drove an EV, she hated his gasoline cars because they were loud, stunk, and could not be started by most women.
Chiming in from experience, our EVs brake pads were rusting faster than they were wearing down. We bought used, so maybe the previous climate was humid, but around 80k miles may have been their first change.
Many (most?) EVs now periodically apply friction brakes to reduce corrosion issues. If an EV doesn't have it, you can do it manually.
Ha, I never thought of it that way but yes, that tracks perfectly. The "inconveniences" of EVs aren't worse than gas cars, it's just that the gas car inconveniences are considered "normal" right now.
I can vouch for this 100%. Have had an electric vehicle for 6 months now.
The vast majority of my charging has been done at home on 120v. Granted, my wife and I both work from home most of the week and have short commutes. Our grocery store has free 240v charging so I top up while I shop.
We took one long trip in those 6 months and rented cars for the drive to/from and used public transit while we were there.
I used a fast charger for the first time this weekend to drop off a kid at the grandparents a couple hours away on Friday and then picked them up in Sunday. Didn't have enough time between trips for the trickle charge to leave me in a comfortable range. 20 minute fast charge did the job for about $15.
My EV's getting older now, but it'll still do 400+km if I charge it fully overnight. If we're doing a road trip it's time for a burger and to stretch ones legs when it's getting low anyways. Eat my food, get some rest and 20-30 minutes later I'm ready to go again.
I was sceptical before buying it, but I will never buy a gas car again. And I work in oil and gas
Amen. The building I work at, where there's roughly about 100 people each day, including police department and local part of ministry's office has exactly ONE charging point built last year. One.
Absolutely true, which is also why I found it extremely annoying when reviewers began claiming that range wasn't as important as fast charging speeds in daily use. Luckily most have stopped that shit, probably realizing there's a reason most people want good range, and this is one of them. Also charging at home/destination cost way less than using a fast charger, and it's better for battery life too.
Yeah EVs seem almost non-viable if you live in an apartment complex right now, which is a shame. At least where I am
When we made laws for handicap parking, there was handicap parking everywhere, overnight.
I live in an apartment and can neither charge at home nor at work. I just charge when I go grocery shopping. It's absolutely viable.