Balance.  This was a great example of critical thinking:  "I bought a 2024 Toyota Prius PHEV and love it.  I've been telling people for 2 years about your point #10.  Most EV Owners rarely use the full capacity of their EV batteries and STILL have range anxiety.   These massive EV SUV's weight 7-8k lbs. and a lot of the weight is due to the battery.  Hats off to Toyota for not following Tesla/Musk over a cliff like so many auto makers (who are now having a problem selling EV's).  PHEV's over the best balance!"  It is very refreshing to stumble across something thoughtful.  We got a lot of talking-points and memes, brainless posts from trolls.  So, it's difficult to find that needle-in-a-haystack type post supporting a topic like balance.  Gasp!  Anywho, I was delighted to respond to that:  We own both a Toyota PHEV and a Toyota BEV.  That claim about range anxiety is false and the weight is only 4.5k lbs.  Both vehicles are great.  Both serve their own purpose.  PHEV are an awesome balance and a great choice for many, but they are also just a bridge to get us through the next decade.  Battery and EV propulsion advancements will bring an end to ICE and hybrid offerings. PHEV will eventually follow, but in the meantime will enjoy some very good years.  Toyota's PHEV is extremely well designed.

• mi/kWh ?
• kWh/100mi ?
• Wh/mi ?

With regard to hypermiling to increase range, ordinary people won't do that.  But for the sake of demonstrating what that will achieve, we need to be told what the efficiency improvement was.  Again, where are those numbers?

"Tesla" Adapter.  Ugh.  Many owners getting their adapter are calling it "Tesla".  That's not helpful, especially if you are trying to setup the Tesla app... because Tesla itself calls it a "NACS" adapter.  Fallout from the misnaming is starting to show up too.  A newbie will arrive at the Supercharger and struggle to get it to work.  Not understanding NACS could result in failing to check the box stating you have an adapter.  In that case, nothing shows up available for you to connect to.  You need that vital info to start a session.  You also need it to recognize the opportunity that there are many other DC fast-chargers available.  Not being aware that NACS is the new standard could result in you waiting for a CCS charging spot to open, even though there are NACS available at the same location.  Ugh.  Oh well.  It's not like I don't keep trying to convey that:  It's a NACS adapter (J3400), not Tesla.  You can use it at far more convenient DC fast-chargers instead... like Ionna.  Think about it.  Ionna has been building stations with 6 CCS and 4 NACS plugs.  If all the CCS are full, just use your NACS adapter.  Over time, that split will become common.  Heck, one of the EVgo locations here (Rogers, Minnesota) already swapped out one of their existing CCS plugs with a NACS.

It can be built, but I have found enthusiasts to be quite impatient.  It takes time and critical thinking for those "anything we want" changes to happen.

Impractical.  He didn't like my previous comment.  I pointed out how sodium-ion batteries for local storage would work great to supplement capacity needed to deliver very high-speed DC charging at location with inadequate infrastructure.  That triggered him with: "It is one of my pet peeves--this argument--even worse, the assumption--that improving the grid supply is impractical."  My guess is he thought my impractical was somehow saying it wasn't possible.  Of course it is, but who's going to pay for that?  Being able to afford initial setup of the equipment is already well beyond the reach of many businesses.  Having to also figure out how to pay for the supply to that equipment (not to mention the higher tier rates) is quite a deterrent.  It's intimidating even when you overcome some risk fear.  I was annoyed and figured this discussion had only just begun, posting:  There was no assumption.  Impractical translates to the scale & expense required.   A small station owner simply cannot take on such an infrastructure improvement on their own.

Since NACS rollout is just getting underway and Tesla is still lagging with station shortcomings (short cords and card/tap payment options), it feels like things are right on schedule for welcoming mainstream consumers next summer... a quiet success.

Accounting.  I wasn't expecting acknowledgement: "There is no *actual cost*.  The cost of an EV battery is decided by policy makers in Washington, and that cost has fluctuated over the years depending on which law happens to be in effect at the time."  That was an idiotic reply though to the topic of amortization.  I have seen others lately try to push a total fabrication like that.  It doesn't even make sense.  In fact, that was so absurd, I wasn't sure how to address it.  I ended up taking the nonsense approach, asking about audience:  Who are you trying to convince?  Cost is the physical material, resources to refine & package, labor for assembly, and transport of the finished product.  Within that is the additional expense to build the production plant itself spread across a predetermined schedule.  That is Accounting 101.

Overthinking.  Those wannabe owners overthinking what they'll do brings back good memories.  I remember the same back when I was first waiting for my 2012 Prius PHV.  It seemed simple to me.  With only 12 miles of capacity, some were plotting out their strategy for getting the most efficient outcome for their longer commute.  Being able to specify when to draw from the battery for EV is useful, especially with a capacity so small.  Anyone, turns out the desire to maximize happens even with much larger batteries.  In this case, it was with regard to timing.  What would it take to squeeze in as much electricity as possible... which is where the overthinking alarm sounded for me.  I should step in before his head explodes.  Knowing you'll rarely ever need that much of a recharge at home anyway, conveying the basics would be more than enough.  I shared:  Yup, you're over thinking it. 80% of usable capacity works out to about 55 kWh.  Your existing 30-amp line will do that in about 10 hours.  Upgrading to a 50-amp line will reduce that to under 6 hours.  60-amp drops it to under 5 hours.

Shipments.  Scheduled shipments to my area (100-mile radius of the Twin Cities) just took a huge jump.  Yesterday was 50.  This morning it's 74.  Watching that number climb is great, but I'm hoping it start dropping in the next week or two... when sales start.  At that point, I won't have any idea from a shipment point of view what's really happening locally.  With some dates already spanning out to early February, there's no way to easy tell if they slip later or arrive earlier.  I have no interest in tracking VINs either.  Fortunately, I know of a handful of wannabe owners in the general area that have been participating online.  When I get my 2026, they may come in person to check it out.  I plan on trying to stir interest by gathering at the Ionna chargers sometime soonest.  Though, the holidays are just as screwy as shipments.  Timing can be a problem.

NACS Test.  One of the reviewers you could attribute the description of "journalist" to took a 2026 Solterra for a spin.  He wanted to find out how well the DC fast-charging had been improved, taking advantage of NACS now being the native port.  No adapter needed.  He preconditioned for 20 minutes.  Outside temperature was 34°F.  From 16% (31 miles), it started at 98kW then climbed to 121kW.  Made it to 50% at 12 minutes.  61% at 18 minutes, speed dropped to 104kW.  Then hitting 72% at 24 minutes, speed dropped to 91kW.  Upon reaching 85% at 31 minutes, speed dropped to 71kW.  That was a very satisfying result.  I can't wait to try charging in real winter conditions, much colder.  I expect a similar outcome.

Will you ever need to charge a second vehicle?

Using a Carrot.  I most definitely agree about this: "I think Americans respond much better to the carrots than sticks."  Thinking about how many people I have encountered who absolutely freak about when even just the idea of compromise is brought up disturbs me.  They feel entitled.  There's no sense of doing any act for the greater good.  Our society encourages selfishness.  That's sad... but at least we know how to deal with such a mindset.  I jumped in with:  Carrot is a great approach, but most of the audience here will fight it out of principal.  Having owned 2 generations of PHEV (for 11 years total) before switching to a BEV taught me a lot about opportunity charging.  There's very little benefit for a BEV but a huge payoff for PHEV.  That's where California rules can come into play.  Requiring a 50-mile minimum and incentivizing landlords to offer charging options for tenants would be an enticing carrot.  We also know that a PHEV will substantial EV range makes household purchases of entry-level BEV realistic.  There's no range-anxiety when a PHEV is available, souring the appeal of ICE and hybrid choices.

Charge Want.  It always nice to see someone request what is already in the process of being rolled out: "I just want to pull the cable and charge."  It's a good sign that want is actually filling a need.  Growth is necessary.  A feature like that will help fulfill it.  Little conveniences go a long way.  Think about how being able to just plug in and not be concerned about anything else changes intimidation to anticipation.  Upon discovery, the newbie wants to try it.  Sweet.  Here's the detail I shared:  ISO 15118 (known as "Plug & Charge") is what you want.  It is a new industry standard still in is early stages of adoption.  Proprietary brand-only conveniences of the past... like Tesla & EVgo... only worked for very limited audiences.  This was designed for everyone everywhere.  It will take awhile for both station & vehicle software to support it though.  There's no guarantee pre-2026 models will support it either.

Slow Rolling.  I like this description of Toyota's approach: "Soon they will all be hybrid, then all Plug-in hybrid, then all electric.  They are slow-rolling the future, but getting there."  I added:  The phaseout of gas-only to hybrid has gone exceptionally well.  It started with Venza and Sienna, they came Camry, followed by RAV4.  When Corolla hybrid production in Mississippi begins, seeing that ramp up to end gas-only is a no-brainer.  Prius is plug-in hybrid only in Europe.  CH-R plug-in hybrid there will likely be next.  Here, CH-R will only be available as an EV.  The Lexus ES electric just revealed will almost certainly be leveraged to enable the Corolla EV concept to become production viable.  So yes, Toyota is indeed getting there.

Wisconsin NEVI.  26 build locations were finalized today.  Some people are not happy about that.  They complain claiming it is government waste.  It's obvious they are upset in principle, never actually taking the time to discover what they are against.  That absence of detail become pretty easy to spot at times too.  They'll claim "underpowered" and "slow" but never sight any value.  It's the same old generic rhetoric... which would normally be tiring & pointless.  But now, it serves as confirmation of progress.  They recognize the effort.  There's a repeating theme of inevitability.  One by one, each state is sounding off with plans about how they will move forward.   So rather that "nothing is happening" claims from a year ago, there are proposals being put into action.  That's great.  What's even better though is being able to draw attention to the bigger picture as we get more reports from states.  With that in mind, I posted:  Helping businesses startup their support for EVs is being twisted into government waste.  That's really sad.  Think about the benefit this provides for a business owner who sees the opportunity, but would struggle otherwise with that initial investment.  That NEVI funding will inspire & support their own expansion with their own funding later.  Subsidies to assist early market growth prove to be well spent money.