Sure, but you bring up all those examples specifically because they're exceptional. A lot of products that seem dumb do end up staying dumb.
I really do want electric vehicles to get better, but that doesn't change the fact that they objectively do suck right now.
And to be clear, they objectively suck, by nearly any measure, for a consumer. They break down more often [1], cost more to fix, they have shitty range, they take forever to charge, they're more expensive. Yes, you get to have a smug feeling of superiority for pretending to save the planet with electric cars, I guess that's worth something, but that doesn't undo the rest of the problems.
Until electric vehicles stop being crappy, corporations simply aren't going to use them, and they can hardly be blamed for it. I do think they'll get better, I think they'll get longer ranges and faster charging and the mechanical problems will get sorted out, but I don't think that pretending the problems aren't a real makes them go away.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electric-vehicles-consumer-repo... This one keeps bothering me because people keep saying that electric cars "cost more to fix but they're so much more reliable so it almost doesn't matter!!!!", when that's objectively not true, at least not yet.
> A lot of products that seem dumb do end up staying dumb.
Of course, some products will be a success and some will flop, but the successes can only happen so long as someone keeps trying and keeps improving it.
> I really do want electric vehicles to get better
Then you should be happy companies are trying to improve them. This is a good thing that Tesla (and others) are trying to make the semi work. It may eventually result in better outcomes for you, vs the alternative where nobody tries and it is guaranteed that nothing gets better.
> They break down more often [1], cost more to fix, they have shitty range, they take forever to charge, they're more expensive.
last week Consumer Reports listed Tesla as the lowest cost of 10 year ownership of any brand.
> Of course, some products will be a success and some will flop, but the successes can only happen so long as someone keeps trying and keeps improving it.
No argument here, I just was questioning the assertions because, and maybe I misread it, it seemed like you were suggesting the success was implied, which I disagreed with.
> Then you should be happy companies are trying to improve them. This is a good thing that Tesla (and others) are trying to make the semi work. It may eventually result in better outcomes for you, vs the alternative where nobody tries and it is guaranteed that nothing gets better.
Yes, I am glad companies are trying to fix them, but I don't blame other companies for not using them in their current state. They simply do not solve the problems that current corporations have to deal with for the reasons I listed.
What bothers me is that a lot of the electric car advocates seem to look at the future at the expense of the present. It's like saying "Everyone should use the Apple 1 computer right now because the Apple II will probably be better", and I don't really think that parses. Yes, it's good that Tesla and other companies are running the necessary experiments to make these things not suck, but that doesn't really change anything.
> last week Consumer Reports listed Tesla as the lowest cost of 10 year ownership of any brand.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers corrected for the Cybertruck launch.
Also, I don't know how that squares with the thing I linked that indicates that as of December of last year Teslas were considerably less reliable than Lexus, Toyota, Buick, and Honda [1]. Consumer Reports is generally pretty good but I suspect that they're measuring different numbers for each article. It doesn't seem clear-cut to me.
I really do want electric vehicles to get better, but that doesn't change the fact that they objectively do suck right now.
And to be clear, they objectively suck, by nearly any measure, for a consumer. They break down more often [1], cost more to fix, they have shitty range, they take forever to charge, they're more expensive. Yes, you get to have a smug feeling of superiority for pretending to save the planet with electric cars, I guess that's worth something, but that doesn't undo the rest of the problems.
Until electric vehicles stop being crappy, corporations simply aren't going to use them, and they can hardly be blamed for it. I do think they'll get better, I think they'll get longer ranges and faster charging and the mechanical problems will get sorted out, but I don't think that pretending the problems aren't a real makes them go away.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electric-vehicles-consumer-repo... This one keeps bothering me because people keep saying that electric cars "cost more to fix but they're so much more reliable so it almost doesn't matter!!!!", when that's objectively not true, at least not yet.