Well, that depends.
People vary.
Yes for some people 120 miles is not enough.
For me it is. (Well, actually it is borderline and I'm undecided which Aptera to get. That extra $3000 for the hybrid would pay for a lot of occasional rental cars.)
Also for people who are not single one person can have an Aptera and the other can have a car with greater range and more room.

Many people will fit into this category and for them it would not be an additional $20K for an extra car.

I'd not dismiss the Aptera out of hand, or say one description applies to everyone.

Need fewer troops to support.
Drive a hybrid.
Best tank 71.65 MPG.

Before this car I spent two years learning hypermiling on my 2004 HCH1.

What matters isn't that exceptions exist (it's easy to find exceptions). It's whether there are enough of those people to make a market.

A 120 mile range does go a long way to making it generally practical.

You never go on weeked trips?

I said that ("it might work as a second car in a two-car family"). If a car can't work as an only car, it's not clear that there will be a real market for it. If a car can work for a single person (even if it is a lame two-seater), a viable market for it is almost assured. Keep in mind that things can only get cheap if there is a big market. Note that a $15,000 Yaris can carry 4 people and leaves an extra $15,000 to spend on gas (equivalent to about 170,000 miles of driving!).

One really starts saving money on fuel if one drives many miles per year. Since EV are so limited in range (and have long fill-up times), they can't easily be used for such driving.

Driving 12,000 a year is 33 miles a day or about 1 gallon of gas per day.

I don't think there are as many people who this would work for as you think.

I'm not dismissing it (not the hybrid version at least!). I like it.

Since you ask, I rarely take weekend trips - maybe one every year or two.
I take a real vacation once every 15 or 20 years.
I'm the type who loves to stay home a lot.
I'd rather spend my money on a better piano or something.
I play piano, guitar and do creative things.

After Sept 11th I rethought many things.
I cut back on some things that use oil unnecessarily.

I have no opinion about what others do.
Live and let live.

Need fewer troops to support.
Drive a hybrid.
Best tank 71.65 MPG.

Before this car I spent two years learning hypermiling on my 2004 HCH1.

What's "rarely" mean?

Of course you do! And there's really nothing wrong with that.

Note that you are quite free do do want you think is appropriate for you. I'm not making any comment about your personal choice. I'm only discussing the general impact of EVs.

You should get your Aptera and post about it.

See my edited post.

Need fewer troops to support.
Drive a hybrid.
Best tank 71.65 MPG.

Before this car I spent two years learning hypermiling on my 2004 HCH1.

It is more of an "I love Firefox" thing than a "complaining about spelling thing", as I said my own spelling is awful. (just misspelled aweful, but Firefox caught it).

Sorry to hear about your spine.

You are correct about an EV's limits, they would make better second cars generally. A car like the Volt or Aptera would be more versatile (misspelled versatile so bad the spell check couldn't even guess what word I intended).

All that said an EV would be very practical for people in combination with a service like http://www.phillycarshare.org/

You could use an EV for commutes and short trips and rent a hybrid for longer trips.

The reason I'm even still talking about EVs after agreeing that a plug in series hybrid would be better is because the prices I've seen for the Volt and Aptera are around $30,000 while the price of the Mitsubishi iMiEV is said to be around $17,000 which is much more affordable.

My dream car is one with suitcase sized batteries that I could take into work and plug in there. I'd have zero daily commuting energy cost!

There is great peace in understanding we can only control one person on this planet.

Need fewer troops to support.
Drive a hybrid.
Best tank 71.65 MPG.

Before this car I spent two years learning hypermiling on my 2004 HCH1.

Such a service would work really well for people who don't own cars. You'd probably have other problems if you had an EV in a metro area with good mass transit. Once you own a car, the economics of an EV don't work out very well. You can spend a little more in fuel costs and avoid needing to rent a car.


Like many EV ideas, it looks like this is waiting for advances in battery technology.

http://www.hybridcars.com/electric-c...010-imiev.html

I think you'll see that at the same time you see cancer cured.

I don't expect that you have any interest in "controlling" anybody! Being "interested" in what people do doesn't mean you want to "control" them.

Would a bicycle work?

nj, are you by chance be one of those people on the Internet who just likes to argue?

Need fewer troops to support.
Drive a hybrid.
Best tank 71.65 MPG.

Before this car I spent two years learning hypermiling on my 2004 HCH1.

Are you? (It's a rhetorical question.)