I’ll start by saying thank you for commenting; I don’t want you to feel attacked just for engaging and giving your opinion. While your opinion is your opinion, I think there are details that can make you a little more open to EV adoption sooner rather than later, but less to convince you and more to care less because it’s really not the terrible decision you seem to think it is.

For nearly every situation, your list of issues is irrelevant:

1. Current gen higher voltage EVs (kia/Hyundai) charge in barely more time than it takes to pump gas. But even that doesn’t really matter because with the exception of this unusual road trip, I’m charging at home while I sleep. No need to even make a stop anywhere. It’s also stupid cheap to charge at home. Literally about 20% cost in terms of dollars per mile compared to gas.
2. Ranges are getting better all the time. I have a much longer commute than most people at about 90 miles round trip. But I can plug in at home. The only time range really matters is for road trips, and if you do that a lot for whatever reason, either get used to waiting, don’t buy an EV, or rent an ICE vehicle for road trips. But I’m proving to myself that road trips are feasible even with a lower range, lower voltage EV.
3. Yeah, fires are a concern. And also fires are a concern for ICE vehicles carrying explosive fuel. It’s silly to pretend that there’s a significant difference here.
4. I got a used 2022 with 50k miles for $19k. The cost has come down. Just stop looking at luxury/sports trims.
5. What serviceability? The only regular service needed is tires, brakes, lights, and wipers. And with regen braking, your friction brakes get minimal use.
6. This is true, but because of how it scales it’s significantly more green to charge a thousand EVs with a combined cycle gas plant than to put gas into a thousand gas cars.
7. I’m not gonna pretend that EVs aren’t heavier, and I’m not even saying that 20% heavier isn’t a lot. But it’s not like they’re 50-100% heavier. My EV is slightly smaller than my RAV4 was, but it feels about the same weight. I guess I don’t see the point of this point? The weight difference is like having two or three adults in the back seat. I don’t think most people drive differently in that situation.

Your wish list isn’t really realistic or necessary. I’d argue that widespread adoption has already happened. But I’ll check each item:

1. Already addressed. Range and charge times are fine for almost everybody almost all of the time. Working on this wouldn’t be a bad idea, but if it costs significantly more to get an extra 100 miles of range, who is willing to pay for it?
2. Why would better hybrid tech lead to more EV adoption? I’m not against having this as an option, but it’s way more headache than just an EV would be.
3. Propane based charging? Like having a generator with gas on board? You’re describing a plug in hybrid and they’re not great.
4. I’m all for more renewables. Have market pricing roll out, and normalize home battery backups instead of backup generators and we’ll flatten the duck curve in no time. Charge home and car overnight and sip home battery power during the day.
5. This is what it would take to replace occupational vehicles like trucks, but I think it’s a waste of time and money to even think about this for the average driver. If 200+kV or maybe one day double that become the norm, then there’s no way that a battery hot swap could be faster and safer than just charging. I can’t stress this enough: current gen kia/hyundai EVs charge from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes with a range well over 300 miles. So you charge at home to 100%, drive FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT, charge for 18 minutes, and you can go another four hours. That 18 minute charge time is passive while you run in to poop and order a sandwich. The range/charge time problem has been solved!

To be clear, as I’ve said before elsewhere, it does not make sense to buy an EV unless you can charge at home. And it might not make sense to switch unless you already need a new vehicle. I opted to sell my RAV4 because it was still in great shape and was therefore still worth a lot. I sold my 2016 RAV4 with like 70k miles for $14k and got my 2022 Bolt EUV with 50k miles for $19k. It cost me $5k. Great deal. And this road trip is the only time I’ve ever needed to stop and charge anywhere but home. This is the stress test, and it’s barely an inconvenience, even with my below average range and charge speed.

I don’t expect to change your mind. If it doesn’t work for your lifestyle, I don’t think anything will ever or should ever change your mind. If you just don’t trust it for whatever reason, nobody is pushing you to choose it, but I think that a lot of your concerns here aren’t or at least shouldn’t be concerns. The more I was reading up on this before making a decision for myself, the more I saw that it really doesn’t take much to make the change, and it’s a net benefit for almost everybody to do so. Ironically, cities are where it doesn’t work because of lagging charge-at-home options, but that’s okay because cities tend to have good buses and trains. Speaking of which…

EVs are the half measure. A lot of people think that hybrids are the half measure, but they’re really not. We should be aiming for public transportation for local stuff like shopping and commuting, and low cost high speed rail for long distance to replace road trips. There is absolute no reason why we can’t expect our country to make this a reality. Our car-obsessed culture and infrastructure is poisoning us, killing us, stunting our economic and cultural growth.

It won’t be long before the chokehold on the strait of Hormuz ripples to increased shipping costs, rippling to even more “supply chain” price hikes. Oil is a limited resource, and it’s probably a good idea to transition away where we pretty easily can. Medical grade plastics are harder to replace than oil and gas for our cars, and our addiction-like dependence on oil for every little thing is making us vulnerable to fragile bottlenecks. Without getting too deep into politics, if the current events of this year along with gas prices aren’t enough to encourage people to look more closely into how EVs could work in their lives, then those people will probably dig their heels in and pay $10/gallon before acknowledging that they’re holding out for a Grand Canyon road trip that’s getting harder and harder to afford in the first place.

Maybe some of your concerns have been massaged, and maybe you’ll be ready to reevaluate again within the next couple years. Idk, it’s your choice and only you know what your personal needs are, but I hate to see oil/gas talking points propagating without clarification or challenge. A lot of people believe it and repeat it, but the raw numbers and testimony unravel the vast majority of it. I encourage anybody who wants to understand this better to check out the YouTube channels Climate Town and Technology Connections. They discuss other stuff too, but most EV focused channels I’ve seen are either too dry or are generally unconvincing. Like one channel said that it’s more efficient in an EV to accelerate quickly up to cruising speed, but aside from maybe miniscule savings in terms of time spent on climate control, I just don’t see it.

Apologies for the absurdly long comment!