The Growing Pain of Electric Vehicles And Their Promising EV Reality

What seems strange to me about the EV market is that the negatives surrounding EVs seemed to be covered up for a long time. Initially, there was no public charging, battery technology was decades from where it needed to be, they were costly, and they sucked on long trips.

It was so bad that even EV makers didn’t seem to get the primary negative of range anxiety because they promoted EV races like Formula-E, which exemplified that EV weakness (if the car ran out of power, the driver had to push it back to the pits reminding everyone in the audience of this weakness.

But recently, the opposite has appeared to be true, and false stories about EV problems are circulating at ever-higher levels even though electrics are now price-competitive, the batteries are far better, and the charging infrastructure has improved. It seems like the better EVs get, the worse they look, so what is going on?

EV Misinformation

This topic came to mind while I was watching a video about people lying about fields of unsold, relatively new EVs emerging in China when, in fact, these cars were largely the result of a failed car rental business and were anything but new. 

Then I wandered over to Reddit, and there is an ongoing thread on the increasing level of EV-damaging misinformation on that service with comparisons to what Philip Morris did decades ago to cover up the dangers of cigarettes.  

Several publications have tried to post articles fighting this misinformation; for instance, there is a post from CleanTechnica on the topic with a distinct Lady Whistledown vibe. In it, the writer points to the source as the Petrochemical industry, which failed to pivot to clean energy and is now working hard to kill EVs so that they can preserve their income stream. This appears to be now part of an overall effort to cover up climate change for the same reason: to preserve existing revenues as a priority over protecting the planet.

This doesn’t mean EVs suit everyone or that every EV is better than every gas car. For instance, the Tesla Cybertruck is being broadly panned, and the GM Hummer EV, while better, is still incredibly inefficient for an electric vehicle (though I must admit wanting to own one as it is a wild truck).

The State Of EVs

At this moment, China has the lead with EVs. They can build them cheaper and arguably better than any other country, and the only thing holding back their market dominance is the animosity between China and the West.

Tesla is a bit of a mess right now; its CEO is distracted, Musk has consistently over-promised and under-delivered (which he just did again), and while the cars are generally pretty good, the service and support process are broken. For instance, where I live, you can’t get a Tesla with body damage fixed because the body shops can’t get parts from Tesla, and we have one of the larger Tesla dealers here (and they don’t do much bodywork). In the West, Tesla is dominant with EVs, so when they have issues, the market suffers. Tesla has several issues right now despite having a decent quarterly income report. 

EV sales continue to increase, though the rate is expected to slow somewhat outside of China and Norway, essentially, I think, due to this growing amount of misinformation. However, Charging infrastructure has improved, batteries have improved, and there is a greater variety of EVs for sale. Ford’s CEO is in love with electrics, even though it appears it is a Chinese electric he loves. 

 Some countries have aggressively embraced EVs (sadly, the US isn’t yet one of them), but there are clear and growing headwinds for the rest.

We need a significant battery breakthrough and improved public charging before EVs can displace all gas cars, and both are coming.

Wrapping Up:

It looks like the petrochemical industry has gotten serious about trying to stop EV sales growth. However, EVs continue to improve at an accelerated rate, and once gas subsidies are eliminated, the speed of adoption should increase significantly. This is in the works but unlikely to be successful before 2030, suggesting we will likely not get to worldwide EV dominance much before 2035 at current rates.

So, when should you switch to an EV? When it makes sense to you. If you mostly work from home, don’t drive long distances (over 150 miles), and have relatively inexpensive electricity, an EV may be for you now. If you commute over 100 miles a day and have no way to charge your car at work or like to take long road trips, then an EV isn’t your ideal vehicle yet and likely won’t be much before 2030.

It’s a shame there is so much misinformation at the moment on a lot of things. I’m on my third EV (none were Teslas) and truly love my car, but we also have a plug-in hybrid for those rare occasions when we have to drive over 150 miles, and that is likely where most others are with EVs today in a two-car family. 

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst at Torque News who covers automotive technology and battery development. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.