Lots of people who have yet to own an electric car think like you do. People who've tried it and have home chargers discover:
1) It's really nice that your car is fully charged every morning... sure beats having to visit gas stations on a regular basis. 4 hours is not a big deal if you're asleep.
2) If you want to go long distance, a network like Tesla's supercharger does the trick. (Tesla owners drive SF-LA by stopping twice for 20 minutes, or pay for a 5-minute battery swap once.)
3) While the only long-range electric car today costs 80k+, Chevy and Tesla are both planning on releasing a cheaper long-range car in 2017.
Is it the case that anyone other than cars is betting on hydrogen fuel cells? The only big fuel cells that I've ever heard of are used in the datacenter industry, where Bloom Energy is the main fuel cell company, and they power theirs on hydrocarbons, not hydrogen.
This is an incredibly significant point that continuously gets glossed over in these pro v con lists. I park my car on the street, and that's not particularly uncommon. Should I run an extension cable over the footpath? What if I have to park further away than my cable reaches?
It's not glossed over: That's why I mentioned it. You are not in the sweet spot for this generation of electric cars. If you look around Hacker News, you will find a bunch of people like you complaining that it doesn't work for people like you. Sorry. Electric cars can grow a lot without buyers like you. If they grow to the point that you're a big problem, they'll be pretty common.
1) It's really nice that your car is fully charged every morning... sure beats having to visit gas stations on a regular basis. 4 hours is not a big deal if you're asleep.
2) If you want to go long distance, a network like Tesla's supercharger does the trick. (Tesla owners drive SF-LA by stopping twice for 20 minutes, or pay for a 5-minute battery swap once.)
3) While the only long-range electric car today costs 80k+, Chevy and Tesla are both planning on releasing a cheaper long-range car in 2017.
Is it the case that anyone other than cars is betting on hydrogen fuel cells? The only big fuel cells that I've ever heard of are used in the datacenter industry, where Bloom Energy is the main fuel cell company, and they power theirs on hydrocarbons, not hydrogen.