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Mon Mar 20, 2023 2:40 am

'tis but a scratch!
https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/scratched-ev-battery-insurer-may-050459910.html

Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:35 am

finster wrote: 'tis but a scratch!
https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/scratched-ev-battery-insurer-may-050459910.html

I also saw this article, and unfortunately, it does what too many people do and makes the generalization that EV = Tesla.

It gives passing reference to other manufacturers, but the details and premise of the entire article are based only around Teslas. Nevermind the batteries, Tesla is openly hostile to ANYONE doing ANY kind of repair to their vehicle. Want to buy a new fender to replace one that got crunched? Nope. Not unless you're having the dealer do the repair. Their (Tesla's) business model for parts and repairs is a known problem and frustration for anyone that has to go through them. Others are pretty much the same as what you experience with their ICE models and getting parts and doing repairs at your choice (or your insurer's choice) of repair shops.

Which brings me to my next two points.

1. If a battery pack on an EV has been damaged, that means there's been some significant other damage to the car. Their placement is such that in order for them to receive damage, other parts of the vehicle MUST have taken a substantial hit, and more than likely, the airbags have also deployed. At that point it brings me to point #2...

2. Repairing modern vehicles is EXPENSIVE! With all the added safety components (airbags, exterior sensors, etc.) a collision, even a smaller one, nets a much higher repair bill, both in parts and labor to properly rehab the car. Combine that with OEM parts seeing dramatic price increases because of covid related production issues over the past few years, and suddenly a car is quickly more expensive to repair than it is to replace. As a quick example, my friend just had an accident with his 2019 Toyota Highlander (ICE). Mileage on the car isn't terribly high, and the damage was limited to the front and passenger front quarter panels, but penetrated to the point that it bent the radiator support and punctured the a/c condenser. Airbags did NOT deploy. Yet his insurance was ready to write that car off. He had to argue/work with the adjuster to get them to put it a few hundred dollars under the threshold of totaling it.

Mon Mar 20, 2023 10:38 am

ev hearse anyone?
https://www.thedrive.com/news/custom-nissan-leaf-h...E_jk4YG2JI

Mon Mar 20, 2023 2:13 pm

finster wrote: ev hearse anyone?
https://www.thedrive.com/news/custom-nissan-leaf-h...E_jk4YG2JI

Good idea! You can bury both in the same hole.

Mon Mar 20, 2023 5:43 pm

Bonesberg55 wrote: finster wrote: ev hearse anyone?
https://www.thedrive.com/news/custom-nissan-leaf-h...E_jk4YG2JI

Good idea! You can bury both in the same hole.

:D :D :D

Does that make it mulch?

Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:41 pm

nbvolks wrote: Floating VW wrote: . . . It seems to me that a lot of these benefits are currently being offered to sweeten a somewhat sour deal, but are not at all sustainable in the long term (especially the government subsidies and the "free" charging stations). . .
It's 100% to get people beyond the Boogeyman they see as range anxiety. . .
Yes, the lack of range does cause anxiety. . . and so does the outrageously high purchase price, the abysmal lack of infrastructure, the pain in the ass of installing a home charging station, the embarrassing fact that child labor was possibly/probably used in the production of the vehicle, etc. . .

Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that these things cause anxiety only to those NOT looking at it through the lens of the opulent city-dweller. I suppose if I had $130k to drop on a couple sets of wheels and some solar panels, and lived within a 30-mile round trip of everywhere I needed to go, hell, none of that would bother me, either!

kingkarmann wrote: The billions in capital expenditures for infrastructure and facilities to switch from ICE to EV was occurring several years before I retired from the auto industry in 2020. The plug isn't going to be pulled.

For all the arguments about how this will not work I can say with a high degree of confidence that EV's will be dead common.
The end date for (most) ICE production is 2040. That's only 17 years from now. By 2025 EV production will outpace ICE output and increase each year thereafter.

. . . change is coming. It can't be stopped.
You're right, change is coming and it can't be stopped. . . but it CAN be slowed to a crawl. This is usually what happens when grand ideologies charge headlong into cold, harsh realities.

EV's have a looooong way to go before they outpace ICE vehicles, if ever.

And I say that because, right now, EV's make up only a little over one half of 1% of the number of vehicles on the road, and that's only in the US. I'm guessing the worldwide figure is much, much lower. Also, EV production in 2022 was only about 6% of ICE production. Do you really believe 6% is going to jump to 51% or higher by 2025?

And don't bet on ICE production going away by 2035, or 2040, or 2050 for that matter. Especially not if they've already spent ten years and billions of dollars to develop the necessary infrastructure, and this is all the farther they've got.

I see EV's as something akin to the metric system: Sure, it seems better on the face of it and the people who are smarter than everyone else will make a big stink about switching over, but at the end of the day we'll tally up how much it's really gonna cost and then decide the old way wasn't so bad after all.

nbvolks wrote: Xevin wrote: nbvolks wrote: They seem locked in on adding charging stations to existing gas stations, which to me, doesn't seem like a good long-term investment.
The current fueling stations for ICE cars have a network of distributors ready to load up the filling stations with cold beer, Slim Jim’s, Tobacco, and soda. That’s high margin profits. Regardless of what energy source is being supplied for cars. The sundries will hold the highest profit margins.

A business with a family of 4 waiting for a 20 minute EV charge has a better chance of buying beef jerky, fountain drinks, and shitty hot dogs, then the family filling up gas for 5 minutes. So why would a gas station selling electricity be any different?
But that's how you think about fueling now. You don't need to charge the same way you fuel a car. Even as charging gets quicker, there's a benefit to being able to charge where you are, rather than have to go to where the charge is. In other words, if I'm already going to a restaurant, I pull up and charge while I'm eating. I don't need to go to yet another place to wait and charge.

That entire network of distributors exists because there needs to be tanks of petrol/diesel in the ground where they are. Electricity can be nearly anywhere you want it to be.
No, Xevin is right. There is a much, much older and simpler reason why inns, restaurants and fueling stations are all located where they are: they are all strategically built at places where travelers need to take a break from traveling. Selling stuff to weary travelers is a time-honored tradition that pre-dates the automobile by thousands of years. Probably even pre-dates prostitution! Why would the EV industry NOT want a piece of that (and I'm talking about selling stuff to travelers here, not prostitution)?

Placing charging stations only at the traveler's destination is a very short-sighted plan that is only applicable to people traveling short distances. You're basically telling long-distance travelers that you don't want their business. If EV's are ever going to have a chance of replacing the ICE (or of becoming more than just the latest failed attempt at establishing a foothold in the market), it is ESSENTIAL that they make sense to more people than just opulent city-dwellers.

And just out of curiosity, if the end game is to eventually put a charging station in every parking spot in front of every house, apartment building, place of business and any other place that people need to go, has anyone paused to consider the magnitude what such an undertaking would entail? And who is going to pay for it all?

Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:45 pm

Who needs an Olive Garden to plug into and charge your car when you have an entertainment center with hourly rates. Might even meet a friend or two by the ice machine :shock: repurpose what is already there. Don’t forget the quarters :wink:

Thu Mar 23, 2023 1:28 am

How much for 3 minutes?

Quote: Do you really believe 6% is going to jump to 51% or higher by 2025?

I’ll guess by end of calendar 2028, and I’m probably late on that guess

Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:00 am

Floating VW wrote:
Yes, the lack of range does cause anxiety. . . and so does the outrageously high purchase price, the abysmal lack of infrastructure, the pain in the ass of installing a home charging station, the embarrassing fact that child labor was possibly/probably used in the production of the vehicle, etc. . .

Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that these things cause anxiety only to those NOT looking at it through the lens of the opulent city-dweller. I suppose if I had $130k to drop on a couple sets of wheels and some solar panels, and lived within a 30-mile round trip of everywhere I needed to go, hell, none of that would bother me, either!

:popcorn:

Would you like a xanax?

Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:26 am

Xevin wrote: Who needs an Olive Garden to plug into and charge your car when you have an entertainment center with hourly rates. Might even meet a friend or two by the ice machine :shock: repurpose what is already there. Don’t forget the quarters :wink:

I've seen that place & it is an Olive Garden. You still get unlimited salad & bread sticks but only within the 3-hour window.

Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:54 am

3 hours??!! Obviously targeting the young and inexperienced! :roll:

Us old guys could get all that in and more in the time it takes to refill an ICE vehicle tank! With age comes certain efficiencies... :wink: :D

Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:57 am

Floating VW wrote: nbvolks wrote: Floating VW wrote: . . . It seems to me that a lot of these benefits are currently being offered to sweeten a somewhat sour deal, but are not at all sustainable in the long term (especially the government subsidies and the "free" charging stations). . .
It's 100% to get people beyond the Boogeyman they see as range anxiety. . .
Yes, the lack of range does cause anxiety. . . and so does the outrageously high purchase price, the abysmal lack of infrastructure, the pain in the ass of installing a home charging station, the embarrassing fact that child labor was possibly/probably used in the production of the vehicle, etc. . .

Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that these things cause anxiety only to those NOT looking at it through the lens of the opulent city-dweller. I suppose if I had $130k to drop on a couple sets of wheels and some solar panels, and lived within a 30-mile round trip of everywhere I needed to go, hell, none of that would bother me, either!

Again, as someone that actually has one, and who personally had moderate range concerns, but is married to someone that had major range concerns, I'm telling you what 99% of owners quickly discover, and that's that it's not the issue that it's made out to be. And "pain in the ass of installing a home charging station"? Again, having installed two, at two different locations, under two different use considerations, they were both very easy to install.

Price. Tell me another new(er) technology that has come online that hasn't had a higher initial pricepoint? Smartphones? Flat screen TVs? Or hell, color TVs? Add on to that, that a lot of the EVs that have come to market have been targeted upmarket to begin with, loaded with various next-gen driver and safety aids, infotainment systems, interior materials, etc., etc. The current average new price of a car, ICE or not, is now $49,500. There are EVs on the market now, that are well below that.

Child labor....I love how this is the new topic du jour to hate on EVs. First, if you're worried about that, then you might want to start ripping through your clothes closet and setting aside some of your electronics. Second, let's talk about where this topic stems from; the batteries. The real culprit is cobalt. Cobalt is mined in certain parts of Africa, where there's a known issue of so called "artisanal mines" (yes, I think that name is as stupid as you do, and no, I didn't come up with it). Some of these mines, but not all, DO use underaged labor. But, fun fact, most auto manufacturers employ some form of source material blockchain tracking. Meaning, they know which mines the cobalt came from, to avoid exactly that issue. Your laptop battery, phone battery, or anything that you use that has a Li-ion battery, however....not so much.

Floating VW wrote: kingkarmann wrote: The billions in capital expenditures for infrastructure and facilities to switch from ICE to EV was occurring several years before I retired from the auto industry in 2020. The plug isn't going to be pulled.

For all the arguments about how this will not work I can say with a high degree of confidence that EV's will be dead common.
The end date for (most) ICE production is 2040. That's only 17 years from now. By 2025 EV production will outpace ICE output and increase each year thereafter.

. . . change is coming. It can't be stopped.
You're right, change is coming and it can't be stopped. . . but it CAN be slowed to a crawl. This is usually what happens when grand ideologies charge headlong into cold, harsh realities.

EV's have a looooong way to go before they outpace ICE vehicles, if ever.

And I say that because, right now, EV's make up only a little over one half of 1% of the number of vehicles on the road, and that's only in the US. I'm guessing the worldwide figure is much, much lower. Also, EV production in 2022 was only about 6% of ICE production. Do you really believe 6% is going to jump to 51% or higher by 2025?

And don't bet on ICE production going away by 2035, or 2040, or 2050 for that matter. Especially not if they've already spent ten years and billions of dollars to develop the necessary infrastructure, and this is all the farther they've got.

I see EV's as something akin to the metric system: Sure, it seems better on the face of it and the people who are smarter than everyone else will make a big stink about switching over, but at the end of the day we'll tally up how much it's really gonna cost and then decide the old way wasn't so bad after all.

They already outpace ICE vehicles in some/many regards. I think it's a mistake to approach it from, "if an EV isn't all things to all people, then it's a failure".

Floating VW wrote: nbvolks wrote: Xevin wrote: nbvolks wrote: They seem locked in on adding charging stations to existing gas stations, which to me, doesn't seem like a good long-term investment.
The current fueling stations for ICE cars have a network of distributors ready to load up the filling stations with cold beer, Slim Jim’s, Tobacco, and soda. That’s high margin profits. Regardless of what energy source is being supplied for cars. The sundries will hold the highest profit margins.

A business with a family of 4 waiting for a 20 minute EV charge has a better chance of buying beef jerky, fountain drinks, and shitty hot dogs, then the family filling up gas for 5 minutes. So why would a gas station selling electricity be any different?
But that's how you think about fueling now. You don't need to charge the same way you fuel a car. Even as charging gets quicker, there's a benefit to being able to charge where you are, rather than have to go to where the charge is. In other words, if I'm already going to a restaurant, I pull up and charge while I'm eating. I don't need to go to yet another place to wait and charge.

That entire network of distributors exists because there needs to be tanks of petrol/diesel in the ground where they are. Electricity can be nearly anywhere you want it to be.
No, Xevin is right. There is a much, much older and simpler reason why inns, restaurants and fueling stations are all located where they are: they are all strategically built at places where travelers need to take a break from traveling. Selling stuff to weary travelers is a time-honored tradition that pre-dates the automobile by thousands of years. Probably even pre-dates prostitution! Why would the EV industry NOT want a piece of that (and I'm talking about selling stuff to travelers here, not prostitution)?

Placing charging stations only at the traveler's destination is a very short-sighted plan that is only applicable to people traveling short distances. You're basically telling long-distance travelers that you don't want their business. If EV's are ever going to have a chance of replacing the ICE (or of becoming more than just the latest failed attempt at establishing a foothold in the market), it is ESSENTIAL that they make sense to more people than just opulent city-dwellers.

And just out of curiosity, if the end game is to eventually put a charging station in every parking spot in front of every house, apartment building, place of business and any other place that people need to go, has anyone paused to consider the magnitude what such an undertaking would entail? And who is going to pay for it all?

Who said anything about placing chargers only at the travelers destination? I didn't. What I said is that the difference between how you "refuel" an EV and an ICE is that you charge where you are, rather than be where you charge. So, if you're travelling, you charge while you stop to eat lunch or dinner. Or you charge while you're at a location you wanted to stop off at to do some sight-seeing. Or if you're staying overnight at a hotel, it can charge there and you're ready to go first thing in the morning.

Again, as someone that's done this, the few times I've needed to use publicly available charging, it's been at places I was already going to, or already needed to stop at (restaurant or hotel). It wasn't a stop in addition to those things, as is often the case with needing to stop at a gas station.

Another way to think of it, is that my time dedicated to actually recharging has been effectively zero. Whereas, with my ICE car, if I added up all the 5, 10, 15, minutes I spend at a gas station, or diverting a drive specifically to go to a gas station, it adds up.

Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:07 am

Nothing like quality customer support.
https://www.businessinsider.com/rivian-buyer-car-died-in-snow-after-3-year-wait-2023-3?amp

Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:40 am

cbeck wrote: Nothing like quality customer support.
https://www.businessinsider.com/rivian-buyer-car-died-in-snow-after-3-year-wait-2023-3?amp

This happened to many dummies in California, in the San Bernardino mountains last moth. Many people got stuck.

"I hit about 2 ½-feet of snow and it just stopped right there," Merrill said. "I had seen all the Rivian marketing campaigns with the cars just eating through the snow so it was kind of like, man this is disappointing."

Every one thinks that their New SUV will tread on snow like a tank.

Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:45 am

cbeck wrote: Nothing like quality customer support.
https://www.businessinsider.com/rivian-buyer-car-died-in-snow-after-3-year-wait-2023-3?amp

Quote: "The car is super impressive and I want the company to do well," Merrill said. "I think I'm just not the right person to be an early adopter."

I mean, dude takes his brand new car and beaches it in snow, then breaks it. The newer companies (Rivian, Lucid, and Tesla [though Tesla has no excuse at this point]), are definitely facing teething issues with production and customer service. But good luck getting a legacy company to pay for you breaking your car and its transport.

That said, I don't know that I'd buy a Rivian or a Lucid at this point, though I want to see them succeed, just to have more competition and more US production.

Sat Mar 25, 2023 4:40 pm

I think it's more that there are idiots that believe everything they read on the internet and see on tv or commercials. The disclaimers are there, but the common sense isn't.

Sat Mar 25, 2023 5:20 pm

steve244 wrote: Would you like a xanax?
No can do, man. I have Aibohphobia.

Thanks anyway, though.

Sat Mar 25, 2023 8:43 pm

nbvolks wrote: . . . I'm telling you what 99% of owners quickly discover, and that's that it's not the issue that it's made out to be.
Perhaps that's because 99% of EV owners are opulent city-dwellers?

nbvolks wrote: . . . And "pain in the ass of installing a home charging station"? Again, having installed two, at two different locations, under two different use considerations, they were both very easy to install.
As a general rule, it is usually very easy to install a pain in the ass. Or so I've heard.

nbvolks wrote: Price. Tell me another new(er) technology that has come online that hasn't had a higher initial price point?
This is true, and over time I expect EV production will streamline and eventually prices will come down. But EV's will never be cheaper to manufacture than ICE vehicles (unless, of course, you compare the cheapest possible EV to mid-to-high end ICE, but that's hardly fair play).

nbvolks wrote: Child labor....I love how this is the new topic du jour to hate on EVs. First, if you're worried about that . . .
Oh, I didn't say I was worried about it; just that it is an embarrassing fact.

I try very hard to own as few electronic devices as I possibly can (and still function in today's world). You won't find very much cobalt in my house!

Up the Analog Kid! Down the Digital Man!

nbvolks wrote: They already outpace ICE vehicles in some/many regards. I think it's a mistake to approach it from, "if an EV isn't all things to all people, then it's a failure".
I can agree with that. But the problem with current EV's is not that they are not "all things to all people." The problem is that they are not yet even "good enough for most people." I wouldn't exactly call that a success. How quickly that will change, is the million-dollar question. Actually, it's the MULTI-BILLION dollar question.

nbvolks wrote: Who said anything about placing chargers only at the travelers destination? I didn't.
Sure you did. You even said it again in your latest response, in bold here:

nbvolks wrote: Again, as someone that's done this, the few times I've needed to use publicly available charging, it's been at places I was already going to, or already needed to stop at (restaurant or hotel). It wasn't a stop in addition to those things, as is often the case with needing to stop at a gas station.
A place you need to go to, or stop at. . . AKA your destination.

How much time and money you spent charging your battery while at your destination is a different discussion, entirely.

I understand your point about someday being able to recharge your battery at all the places you stop at. That's great. And perhaps some day there may be a charging station in every parking spot at every diner, motel and roadside attraction we come across on our way to somewhere else. But right now, that's far from reality. And, as Xevin observed earlier, they currently seem intent on putting up charging stations everywhere EXCEPT at the places which are designed to cater to motorists. That's a wasted opportunity.

Sat Mar 25, 2023 9:17 pm

It was mentioned earlier (might even have been by me) that Dodge had decided to go all electric and stop putting gasoline engines in their muscle cars. . .

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/17/dodge-unveils-electric-muscle-car-concept-charger-daytona-srt.html

. . . only to backpedal a week later and admit they might, well, just switch the V-8 to a twin-turbo V-6.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/dodge-challenger-charger-six-cylinder-rumour/

Guess what?

Toyota just did the same thing:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/29/toyota-ceo-stands-...icism.html

This is why I don't believe the hype about EV's replacing ICE by 2035, or whenever. It has to make sense or it's not gonna work, and right now, EV's just don't make enough sense.

P.S. Fun fact: Over the past 7 years, Walmart has managed to install charging stations at about 100 of their stores, nationwide. The cost to charge your EV while you shop there varies, but in "most states" they "will charge you 43 cents per kWh if you're a guest."

https://www.slashgear.com/1135151/heres-how-much-it-costs-to-charge-your-ev-at-walmart/

So, if you drive a Volvo C40 Recharge, it will cost you approximately $30 to get about 200 miles of range. To put that into perspective, that's the equivalent of an ICE vehicle that gets a 23 mpg at $3.50 per gallon of gas. The Tesla Model 3 is a little better at about $22 to go 200 miles.

To be fair, some of those Walmart's charge considerably less to charge your EV, though.

Sun Mar 26, 2023 4:55 am

Floating VW wrote: nbvolks wrote: . . . I'm telling you what 99% of owners quickly discover, and that's that it's not the issue that it's made out to be.
Perhaps that's because 99% of EV owners are opulent city-dwellers?

Why's that the thing for you? It starts coming off as smug jealousy when you come at it from that angle. But, let's go with your assumption. IF it were true that it's only being adopted by "opulent city-dwellers" (it is not), then what's it to you? If it works for them, so be it.

Floating VW wrote: nbvolks wrote: . . . And "pain in the ass of installing a home charging station"? Again, having installed two, at two different locations, under two different use considerations, they were both very easy to install.
As a general rule, it is usually very easy to install a pain in the ass. Or so I've heard.

Uhhh....okay.

Floating VW wrote: nbvolks wrote: Price. Tell me another new(er) technology that has come online that hasn't had a higher initial price point?
This is true, and over time I expect EV production will streamline and eventually prices will come down. But EV's will never be cheaper to manufacture than ICE vehicles (unless, of course, you compare the cheapest possible EV to mid-to-high end ICE, but that's hardly fair play).

Again, price out building a tube based console TV. That's no longer cheaper. Manufacturing a car is more than just "poof" it exists. You need tooling, design, years of development. At some point ICE vehicle development will be more expensive.

Floating VW wrote: nbvolks wrote: Child labor....I love how this is the new topic du jour to hate on EVs. First, if you're worried about that . . .
Oh, I didn't say I was worried about it; just that it is an embarrassing fact.

I try very hard to own as few electronic devices as I possibly can (and still function in today's world). You won't find very much cobalt in my house!

Up the Analog Kid! Down the Digital Man!

Do you also try very hard to know the source of your clothing?

And again, it's a fact about general purpose Li-ion batteries that's been, for the most part, attributed to EVs by lazy association.

Floating VW wrote: nbvolks wrote: They already outpace ICE vehicles in some/many regards. I think it's a mistake to approach it from, "if an EV isn't all things to all people, then it's a failure".
I can agree with that. But the problem with current EV's is not that they are not "all things to all people." The problem is that they are not yet even "good enough for most people." I wouldn't exactly call that a success. How quickly that will change, is the million-dollar question. Actually, it's the MULTI-BILLION dollar question.

The entire initial premise behind EVs as emissions mitigation was that the average American drives <40 miles per day. That's the reality. It may not be your reality, but for most it is. To that end, even the cheapest EV on the market meets and exceeds those needs several fold.

Floating VW wrote: nbvolks wrote: Who said anything about placing chargers only at the travelers destination? I didn't.
Sure you did. You even said it again in your latest response, in bold here:

nbvolks wrote: Again, as someone that's done this, the few times I've needed to use publicly available charging, it's been at places I was already going to, or already needed to stop at (restaurant or hotel). It wasn't a stop in addition to those things, as is often the case with needing to stop at a gas station.
A place you need to go to, or stop at. . . AKA your destination.

A restaurant or hotel on a roadtrip is not the destination. They're stops you need to make along a roadtrip because we're human beings, not automatons. So let me restate it again as clearly as possible. When I take roadtrips in my ICE vehicle, I need to make stops to refuel it regardless of my needs, so I need to go to a gas station, which may or may not conveniently be on my route. When I've taken roadtrips in my EV I have only had to "refuel" it while already doing normal things that you do on a roadtrip, like stop to eat lunch. I have not had to go out of my way, or make an additional stop for the sole purpose of charging the car.

In addition, yes, I can and have, charged at the destination if needed. Which again, allowed me to not have to make a separate stop/trip to refuel the car, as would otherwise be the case with our ICE vehicle.

Floating VW wrote: How much time and money you spent charging your battery while at your destination is a different discussion, entirely.

Is it though? That's part and parcel of the ownership experience, whether ICE or EV. And there certainly is a misunderstanding about how charging works or how long it takes.

Floating VW wrote: I understand your point about someday being able to recharge your battery at all the places you stop at. That's great. And perhaps some day there may be a charging station in every parking spot at every diner, motel and roadside attraction we come across on our way to somewhere else. But right now, that's far from reality. And, as Xevin observed earlier, they currently seem intent on putting up charging stations everywhere EXCEPT at the places which are designed to cater to motorists. That's a wasted opportunity.

Because those things don't exist where you are, doesn't mean they don't exist elsewhere already. I'm also not sure you know what to look for. If you're looking for giant gas station like signage, you've probably missed them. Even in more remote parts of the country there's loads of level 2 or level 3 charging already available, and every wrench symbol you see in the map below is another one coming online in the next few months. This also isn't showing all of them, as it will show more if you zoom in. (note how it shows none in Denver zoomed out this far, which is obviously wrong).

Again, as someone that has one and uses one, there essentially has been charging at every restaurant and roadside attraction I've need to have one at. Whether that's skiing, or a random spot in a tiny town that my in-laws are in.