EVs have gotten better in the sense that many of them now go farther. The 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 9 (reviewed here) comes standard with more than 300 miles of fully charged driving range. The italics are to emphasize an important point – which is that many EVs come standard with a lot less range. You can buy more – usually for several thousand dollars more, which is kind of like being expected to pay extra for a fourth tire or a windshield, since a short-range EV is almost as useless without more than 150-200-ish miles of fully charged range.

But even though the Hyundai EV’s range is better, it will never be enough – because it still takes comparatively forever to recover charge and for a second (and compounding) reason as well.

How long is comparatively forever?

It took about half an hour to recover about 100 miles of driving range at a “fast” charger. I place the word within air fingers quotes to point out the disingenuous use of the word in this context. It’s true that “fast” charging is faster than charging at home – which takes about eight hours, depending on the EV (and assuming you have a home equipped with what is styled Level II or 240V charging capability). But it is “fast” in the way that a retarded child is “special.” In other words, it is an attempt to make the best of it.

No, that is not quite right.

This business is all about trying to get people to think of that which takes comparatively forever as being “fast.” In other words, it is an attempt to diddle with people’s understanding of reality, as in Orwell’s book and specifically as regards that brilliant scene about the announcement that the chocolate ration was being increased (when in fact everyone knew it was being decreased).

Do you have half an hour to wait for the electrical energy equivalent of the energy contained in about three gallons of gasoline?

Perhaps if you’re retired or self-employed and can maybe do some work on the laptop while you wait. Most everyone else needs to get going.

I keep five gallon jugs of gas at the house for just-in-case. You can’t predict when a tree will down a power line (I live in the country) and so it’s sound policy to have gas on hand for the generator. I sometimes also forget to gas up the truck or one of the new cars they drop off for me to test drive and since the gas station is some miles down the road, I sometimes just pour the five gallons into the truck or new car if they’re low. It takes less than five minutes to do this, gravity fed. At the gas station, I can pump in a full tank in about the same time.

EV apologists go to tortured lengths to evade or rationalize away the half an hour or longer it takes to recover any meaningful charge at a “fast” charger. They will herald the capability some EVs tout of being able to recover 100 miles of driving range in “only” 15 minutes. As if waiting three times as long for what amounts to three or four gallons of gas constitutes “fast.”

Cue Parsons beaming like an imbecile about the chocolate ration increasing.

Then there is the other problem. The one that rarely gets mentioned but which is fatal to the idea that EVs can replace gas-engined vehicles en masse.

I noticed the problem as I pulled up to the EV “fast” charger kiosks to instill some charge in the Ioniq 9. Emphasis on some – since I did not want to sit there for an hour or longer. There were five EV charging spots available and as I sat there in the Hyundai waiting for it to recover enough charge to get me home, I got to thinking about what it would be like if all those spots had been occupied by other EVs when I pulled up for a charge.

Obviously, I’d have to wait for one of them to finish charging before I could hook up and start charging my EV. That might take awhile, since it takes about 30 minutes to draw a partial charge. Add that to the time it takes to charge your EV, once a spot opens up.

Thirty minutes has become an hour.

It would be hours if EVs constituted even half of the vehicles on the road due to the limited number of kiosks and the amount of time it takes to even partially charge one EV. Imagine what it would be like at gas stations if it took each car at each pump 15 minutes to pump three or four gallons of gas (which will mean they have to pump more, soon – because you can’t drive very far on that).

This assumes it is realistically possible to build out charging kiosks in numbers comparable to gas pumps.

It isn’t, because EV kiosks have to be connected to the source of the electricity they dispense. This imposes a natural limit on how widely EV charging kiosks can be dispersed.

Gas can be trucked and stored in tanks. There is also plenty of gas. Much more electricity would be needed to power up a fleet of EVs and that capacity does not exist.

The summary is that EVs will never be mass market vehicles. But that is probably just the point; i.e., to get the masses out of vehicles.

 . . .

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