Chiming in on this. I am a diehard SUV driver. I have a diesel Yukon which gets 25-27 mph. My best friend could not be more opposite lol. She has a Prius Prime and her husband drives a Chevy Bolt. Her Prius is a hybrid so can be just electric then switch to gas. This would be ideal for me, but like, in a big SUV lol. Neither of them drive much and their kids aren't in sports that require them to go all over the place, and they don't really vacation either, so EVs work great for them. My kids on the other hand are both in different sports, and we frequently drive to tournaments over 200 miles away. Those tournaments are never in places where there are chargers tho. Wrestling tends to be in high school gyms in small towns here. For us, an EV would be much more difficult, because while there are some with a 400 mile range, thats like depending on actually getting an extra 60 miles after your low fuel light comes on lol. It's possible, but most of us don't take that chance. I am hopeful that eventually the infrastructure gets to the point where chargers are everywhere, but for those who live rurally or travel a lot in rural destinations, we aren't there yet. And while I know there are probably chargers available along the route somewhere, but we don't want to add that much extra time to an already horribly long day.
Even taking the range anxiety out of the equation there's this. In the same week, they both hit small deer on a county road. One of them was on gravel, so maybe 40 mph. The other one was maybe at 50 mph. The damage to the batteries alone in the Prius was enough to total out the car. It was only 2 year old with like 10K miles. Took her almost 6 months to find another one to replace it, and the insurance payout was not enough to cover the full cost of a new(ish) one. Her husbands wasn't totaled, but it was close. 2 weeks after that, I hit a deer at around 60. It broke my grill. That's it. I drove it around for 2 months before I got it fixed. So it's not even just the worry about will the battery need to be replaced before I am ready to get rid of the car. There are things outside of warranty issues to be considered as well. Usually when people mention the cost of the batteries, the response is most people will never have a car long enough to have to worry about it. But stuff happens. And I know many people don't carry full coverage insurance if their car is paid off, esp now when money is tight. So if you hit a deer, or are hit by an uninsured motorist, it could certainly be very expensive to fix.
I think this is a thing where unless you have experienced a thing, you can't really get it. Like I have always lived in a rural area. I cannot fathom driving less than 20K miles a year, or having everything I could possibly ever need in a 10 mile radius. Heck my kids school isn't even in a 10 mile radius. People who have always lived in metropolitan areas have a hard time (or seem to) in understanding that many of us do often travel farther than an EV can go in a day, and that there aren't chargers at our destination. Or that people do that often enough that it is a valid concern.
I don't know how rural you live but I know I frequently visit middle Georgia, and I don't think you can get much more rural and isolated than middle Georgia. Often spending weeks at a time there visiting family. I drive right at 20,000 miles a year and my wife another 8,000. My cost for that is about $600 a year in electricity. If I drove those same 28000 miles at 25 MPG I would be looking at $4000+. I'll take that $3400 a year in savings and go on vacation.
Charging in middle Georgia was annoying but is now a breeze. The same for our trips to Panama City Beach. Trips there required lots of planning because there was NO DCFC but now there are several options.
Now that the Tesla Supercharger network has opened up to Ford EV I no longer feel the need to do any sort of trip planning for charging when taking a road trip anywhere in the southeast. Any further than that and I would just fly but people drive EV across the country every day. I know I am 50 miles or less at the vast majority of times from a compatible and working DCFC. The built in route planning or the route planning in Apple maps will take me to a charger if needed.
As for repair times and costs, they currently stink for virtually any newer car. There are so many sensors to support lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, parking, etc, that the slightest bump causes $10,000 or more in damage. Set off an airbag and the car is totaled no matter what energy is used to drive the wheels.
Cars are designed to sacrifice themselves to save the occupants.
There are hundreds of thousands of rural EV drivers who drive everyday. I see more and more in rural Georgia when visiting my family.
On the sports kids theme, my neighbors son plays travel lacrosse. One of the other parents on the team rents a Tesla for every sports road trip because he has found it cheaper to rent an EV and drive than drive his own Tahoe and pay for gas and wear and tear. So far he has driven from Georgia to Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. All as someone who does not own an EV and has not had any issues. Another parent saw his success and thought he would do the same. He rented a Chevy Bolt, as a non EV owner did no research about public charging, and ended up having to abandon the car part way and fly the rest of the way. So yeah, not for everyone.
As you said:
I think this is a thing where unless you have experienced a thing, you can't really get it.
That is very true for many people and EV. Many people are not going to believe driving an EV is possible for their lifestyle until they see a friend or neighbor that has already switched and lives a similar lifestyle.
As for the diehard fullsize SUV in you, I have been working on convincing my wife that we should look at the KIA EV9. Dimensionally it is very similar to a regular Yukon but only has the option for 7 and not 8. All for very similar pricing but far cheaper operating costs in favor of the EV9.
