The article does give some good points and reflects my thinking.
My local Meijers store let Tesla install charging stations in the back of its parking lot, and recently the number of stations increased to maybe double what it was.
Usually when I go shopping there I’ll see 25% of the stations being used. When I look at the Teslas as I drive by, most have no one in them so I wonder where the drivers wander off to. Shopping at Meijers or having a snack at nearby restaurants maybe? Mostly the same cars will still be plugged in there when I leave.
I went there the weekend after Thanksgiving and almost every station was in use. A few more cars and people would have been having to wait, on top of having to kill 20-30 minutes at least for a charge.
And that’s with around 1% of the US car fleet EV.
I just don’t see how things can change dramatically overnight or in 10 years for that matter.
I’ve found the old adage “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans” to fit in with my philosophy concerning EV. Things may seem to make sense and governments may push something, but what happens may end up not being changed like the best laid plan was.
I’m involved in general aviation and there’s been plans and directives to get lead out of aviation gasoline for 25+ years, but despite a lot of money spent on research and money spent trying to develop a drop in no lead gasoline so far the effort has failed and leaded avgas is still what almost all reciprocating engine planes use. Getting lead out of gas should have been easy right?
When I started in the truck industry 10 years ago there was a lot of push toward propane to replace diesel, and it has only ended up a minor player in truck fuels. A handful of fleets use it and the refuse companies often embraced it because they could get their own fuel from their landfills, but otherwise not much enthusiasm came about in the industry.
My company developed a propane option for school buses, and given how similar propane engines and gasoline engines are, and the problems diesel has had since complex emissions control systems have been required, increasing numbers of customers started asking for gasoline powered buses. It was fairly easy to adapt the propane configurations to gasoline, and then gasoline powered school buses were back in the product line. Imagine that..
Time will tell how powering cars will evolve, but any company devoting all their resources and commitment to just one solution is taking a big risk IMHO. But what do I know!