They’re talking about the type of consumer we don’t see here.
Your average low wage hourly worker that either buys some rent-a-wreck special from the BHPH or if a bit more fortunate owns a hand me down but still mostly reliable ride.
They aren’t buying a new or even used BEV, it’s not in their purview if they’re being responsible with credit.
It’s not an excuse, it’s realism. We’re not going to get many of the mass transit projects done, period. Even in places where projects have been completed they are not getting used as designed. The Bay Area still has over 20% fewer people commuting to work vs pre-pandemic, but traffic across the bridges is now worse than pre-pandemic levels. The reason? BART ridership is off 60% from where it was before the pandemic. No one wants to take it despite the traffic, its finances are in tatters and any practical plan to reverse this is at best a hope at this point. In this environment you seriously believe you’re going to wave a magic wand and get projects approved that couldn’t get approval for the last decades? Or are you simply expressing how you think think things “should be” with no real plan or hope of actually getting there?
The Robotaxi/ group charging thing, on the other hand, will happen. It will happen because the underlying economics will drive it- charging cars with extremely cheap power, eliminating one of the biggest monthly expenses for a large number of people, actually using an expensive, depreciating asset like a car for more than 5% of the time. That’s about to be practical and it will change the urban landscape in the process- much less parking needed, for example. Not taking that into account when planning at this point is myopic. On the other hand I agree with pushing for daytime charging spots in urban areas- that’s something I believe can actually get done and will make economic sense. And as technologies evolve more options will present themselves- robotaxis improving packing density on roads will happen eventually, for example. Sooner than most infrastructure projects would be completed in any case…
Easy to do when the singular state party owns everything and the closest anyone comes to ownership is long term leases where one side can terminate at any time for any or no reason at all.
There is no such thing as NIMBY there.
We are not the PRC. (Yet)
I’m pretty sure the average household has 2 cars because there’s 2 drivers that each need a car at the same time. So in reality you’re going to increase to 3 cars. Two EVs for optimal day-to-day commuting efficiency for each driver and 1 ICE for longer trips.
No kidding… This is the type of completely detached from reality thinking that insures none of what you’re proposing will move forward.
I was going to China over the period that railway system was built, largely Shenzhen from 2001 onwards. I opened an R&D center and later a factory there. I watched the metro system go up virtually overnight, saw the factories demolished to make room. I watched the high speed rail go in and watched the final leg to Hongkong get delayed by five years because at the time they approached something of a democracy and had little things like “environmental review” and “personal property” that the mainland simply didn’t have to worry about. You can do that type of thing in an autocracy- ignore lawsuits, use eminent domain, rig the system with bribes and just get it done. If you hadn’t noticed we don’t live in an autocracy (yet), and if we did it would not be building mass transit systems.
We need a path forward in the world we live in, not the one you think we “should” live in. If I was dictator I’d do things very differently, but I choose not to live in that dream world.
Yes, we don’t have any of that here. Not at all. Brilliant statement.
Yeah, that’s the type of thinking that’s going to get us into a stone age at some point. Look at Chinia, nah man they are communist that won’t fly here. Ok Scandinavian countries, nah, that’s socialism. Europe, nah, everything is smaller there. Nothing around here is ever a solution, just a bunch of excuses to keep the status quo. Let’s get back to EV discussion then.
Let’s take the pinko-commie / socialst shit with rebates and see how many sell? Oh, but but oil subsidies? Fuck it, take those out too, if we are so proud of what we are, noone gets any handouts. Let’s see how quickly we can become a third world country while the rest of the world moves forward. As long as we have 12 carrier groups out there we can saber rattle our way to the top.
Nailed it! 
That makes no sense at all. Why wouldn’t the lawyers just buy a fancy EV instead of pissing away all of their money on fines?
Can’t invest in infrastructure when Team America World Police is keeping the military industrial complex juiced up with all the conflicts happening in the world.
There are other countries that have great rail systems too. At a certain point, the blame is justified.
Like 10$ a day and not every day. So cheap level 1 parking
And not everyone drives an EV, ask the Lincoln lawyer lol
tHe AdUlTs ArE bAcK iN cHaRgE. 
From Electrify America…
I haven’t been to an EA station since Tuesday morning, and I’m currently more than 2,000 miles away from my car.
These outrageously-delayed texts started a couple of weeks ago.
Glad I’m not the crazy one for thinking my EA got hacked
We don’t. Not on anything close to that scale. You’re delusional if you think we do.
Example: in 2008 California voters approved a project to build high speed rail between L.A. and San Francisco. It was supposed to be 520 miles long, be complete in 2020 and cost $33 billion. The latest estimates are 171 miles long, complete 2030 and $128 billion.
For comparison Morocco also inked a deal for high speed rail in 2008. They opened 201 miles of track in 2018 for a cost of $2.1 billion. Meanwhile much of the California route has yet to pass environmental review, while well funded lawsuits have delayed progress through farmland by a decade (so far).
The first step towards fixing a problem is admitting there is one. By suggesting that the US can simply do what China and other countries have done you’re not admitting the problem. You’re then suggesting a strategy that assumes the problem you won’t admit doesn’t exist.
If you want to tackle fixing the problem be my guest- more power to you. But proposing things that rely on a fix with no apparent concept that they’re completely unworkable is counterproductive at best.
America doesn’t do the consensus required for large projects well anymore. We’re more individualistic than most, and we’ve set up a system that lets nearly any individual throw billion dollar spinners into the works of mega-projects with environmental reviews, spotted owls, water rights, etc. On the other hand we’re great at innovation and bringing new technologies to scale. About 15 years ago “future mobility” conferences were all abuzz about self-driving cars that would be triple the carrying capacity of our existing highways. That project- dedicated, separated lanes on existing highways that can carry 4x the car volume for a given space, is the type of project America is much more suited to these days.
Hi speed rail in CA is a bad example. That was just to line some pockets of the friends of an outgoing administration. There was zero chance of it working.
I went to an EA station last week, was all messed up, it appeared that my car wasn’t charging, but it was, and it never charged my credit card
Then take your pick. Honolulu’s 20 mile downtown rail, begun in 2006 at an estimated 4 billion, currently estimated to cost 3x that and fully open in 2031. The East span of the Bay Bridge went from a 250 million estimate to 6.5 billion. There are innumerable ways we screw ourselves here in the US. I’ve built big projects on three going on five continents now. The US is a nightmare compared to any of them, even Europe. Every county has a different permitting process with different rules. If during a site walk someone spots an endangered species you can add a year to the schedule of a small project, easy. Spot an artifact during construction? Call the archeologist to make sure it’s not ancient Native American; if so add another massive chunk to the schedule. And that’s after the NIMBY crew has already thrown years of permit delays and expanded environmental impact reports at you. There are plenty of reasons we suck at building big things these days.
Put it this way, all land in CA is owned by someone. The Railroads bought their land years ago and have teams of lawyers to ensure no one else puts another railroad on their land. They can only rent it. So a high speed rail would’ve enroached on their land.
The state could’ve used Emmient Domain and seized it, but after all , it was just a money grab. It was never intended to be a serious project and was earmarked for failure.
I agree with you, that the way the US is setup that we cannot have such nice things, but the CA Boondoggle (as it is called here) was never a serious attempt, it was just a way to funnel funds to certain groups.
