Perhaps not "global", but it sure seems to be pretty much the entire Western world by now. The US was the first to lose its sedans, but over here in Europe the cars are rapidly expanding as well.

Where is it not a thing? Japan?

Both are irrelevant for your sub-100-mile daily commute, and the additional initial charge for a twice-a-year road trip is a rounding error.

The additional range is nice for home charging when you regularly do 500-mile-plus daily round trips, but that's way beyond regular commute ranges, and someone like an on-location service technician will have the company pay for it anyways.

I won't say that nobody does it, but we're definitely talking about edge cases here.

> There are big sections of the western US (for example) where the existing EV ranges are a dealbreaker

Where? I live in Wyoming. The folks who have EVs around me are doing fine–there aren't many public chargers on a square-mile basis, but there aren't many places the public is randomly going. If you're travelling on a highway, you're passing chargers about half as regularly as you're passing gas stations.

My next vehicle will be an EV. (I'm waiting for non-Tesla self driving to get a bit better.)

The western states are fairly well served by interstates, and all the interstates are now well served by chargers. Obviously there are routes that don't use interstates that aren't served, but in the continental US there is no spot that is more than 150 miles from a charger, and very few that are more than 50.

Population-wise that's a rounding error, and very few people routinely take 500+ mile road trips without ever encountering a rest stop or town large enough to warrant a charger.

Perhaps there are some farm workers left who would like some additional range, but they can always throw an extra battery pack or two in the cargo bed, Cybertruck-style.

There will always be people who aren't perfectly served by the currently-available options. We shouldn't let the outliers dominate the conversation when the existing options are sufficient for the vast majority.

> There are big sections of the western US (for example) where the existing EV ranges are a dealbreaker.

Not really anymore, at least not as far as places people regularly need to drive for personal reasons. I'm not saying you can't find people for whom an EV isn't a practical option, I don't even have to look outside of my inner suburban neighborhood to find those, but just like in my neighborhood the majority of people even living in the rural west would have no problem having an EV as a daily because they can charge at home.

Most people aren't driving 200+ miles every day or constantly towing things even if they live and work in the middle of nowhere, and the fact that they can install a fuel station that has little to no operating cost basically anywhere that has a good view of the sky offers advantages of its own.

Where?

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=walmart+ev

https://supercharge.info/map

https://www.plugshare.com/

US Gains 11,300 Ultra-Fast Chargers in Bet to Lure More EV Drivers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46815932 - January 2026 (11 comments)

I partially agree for a different reason.

Yes the Chinese have better infrastructure. Probably even better technology out in production available to them at this point. But so what? I mean it's great for the rest of the world. And that's awesome. But how are we plebes in the US ever gonna get access to those vehicles?

It's not as simple an issue as people make it out to be here in the US.

But yes. Good on Europe and China for pushing these technologies forward.

If this is messaging fluff, it's aimed at regulators and politicians in Europe. Not shareholders.