On Aug 29, 2014, at 3:03 PM, Peri Hartman via EV <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think one could argue that if you take a 100 mile trip once every 6 weeks, > an EV for everything else might work. Renting once every 6 weeks would be > reasonable, perhaps. For some, perhaps. It's definitely much less convenient than get-in-the-car-and-go -- you've got to make reservations, get to the rental place during business hours, deal with all the paperwork, return the car during business hours, make sure you drop it off with a full tank...especially if you were looking to get an early start or come back late at night, that starts to turn into either or both a major inconvenience or significant additional expense. Possibly _very_ significant if you have to take time off work to pick up and / or return the car and pay for an additional day or two of rental fees. Basically, unless you're already renting for longer trips, switching to renting probably isn't going to be something you consider. Most people who rent cars do so after flying to their destination, and only small percentages do so in lieu of driving their own cars. BEVs aren't going to change the mental dynamics of that situation. But there's a larger problem. If everybody who currently drives their own vehicle for 80+ mile trips now needs to rent a car, those car rental companies need to dramatically expand and add huge numbers of gasoline cars to their fleets -- and have that much more parking space capacity both for their own vehicles and those of their clients, and all the rest. That cuts an awful lot into expected environmental gains as an whole -- you've still got huge numbers of gasoline cars being made and driven, plus being dumped onto the used car market after a year. Again, contrast that with the Volt and presumed future PHEVs with similar specs: they're pure electric BEVs for Dennis's 85% of trips, and they're 40% electric for 100-mile trips. And all this in a single vehicle, with no need for a second one. It'll be fantastic when BEVs can compete with that...but that day is a looooooong time coming. In the mean time, BEVs as a great possibility for the second car for families that're going to have two cars anyway, and PHEVs in place of pure gasoline cars for all the rest. And, please, let's not pretend otherwise! Cheers, b& -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 801 bytes Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20140829/ad8457b6/attachment.pgp> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
