There is nowhere to charge. EVs only work if you have a house in Palo Alto.
The claim you picked There is nowhere to charge. EVs only work if you have a house in Palo Alto.
Home (or workplace) charging is the product. Public networks grew fast and are still patchy in the wrong places — especially apartment streets.
What is true
If you street-park in a dense European city with no shared box, the car is a worse appliance. That is a planning failure, not proof that electrons cannot travel through a cable.
Most EV kilometers in Norway, California, and Germany are not won at a highway plaza. They are won on a 7–11 kW box overnight. EPA notes the majority of U.S. daily trips are short; 98% of trips are ≤120 km (75 miles). Public DC fast networks have multiplied (U.S. NEVI money, EU AFIR rules). Reliability of some networks is still a meme for a reason.
The remaining hard cases: renters, tower-block residents, people without a dedicated parking space. Policy is slowly forcing “right to socket” rules in the EU. Until that is boring infrastructure, those drivers are right to hesitate. They are not the same as “there are no chargers.”
Key figures
- Default pattern
- Charge where the car sleeps
- Daily trips (U.S.)
- 73% ≤16 km (10 miles); 98% ≤120 km (75 miles) (NHTS)
- Hard mode
- No private parking — a real, shrinking barrier
Sources
- Electric Vehicle Myths (charging) U.S. EPA
