Posted on 11/12/2025 4:20:44 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Uber driver Rosie Ramirez’s electric vehicle can go some 260 miles at full charge, which should be plenty on Oahu. But that mileage is quickly eaten up as Ramirez ferries passengers around the island, and she’s learned the hard way that she can’t count on EV chargers to be available for a top off.
Ramirez said she starts planning where to charge once the range is down to about half, and even then she has to be prepared for chargers to be out of commission or for other drivers to have beaten her there.
“It’s very frustrating,” she said last week as she sat on a shaded bench next to her 2023 Chevy Bolt at Dole Plantation and waited 45 minutes for it to charge.
Ramirez’s fear of being stranded far from home is shared by many electric vehicle owners. Hawaii has one of the country’s highest rates of EV ownership, but state officials have struggled to get enough charging stations online to support them.
Ramirez, 45, doesn’t have a charger at her home in Wahiawa because she said it’s too expensive. While prices vary based on the type of charger and the labor required to install it, the cost is generally $1,000 to $2,000.
Ramirez began renting her Chevy Bolt through Uber because her previous car — a green Jeep she named Ca$h Money Baby — needs maintenance after so much use.
But she has to plan ahead because stations are spaced far apart outside of town, meaning when one is out of commission, it’s a long way to the next. She also has arrived to find somebody who got there before her left their car parked indefinitely.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
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Maybe an EV wasn’t the smartest choice for a car service business...
It seems like Bribem’s $5 Billion charging-station grant wasn’t spread where it’s needed.
Hawaii is one place where electric vehicles might make sense. You’re not going to be driving very far anyway so.......
EVs make even less sense in Hawaii as ALL of their electric power is generated from fuel oil hauled long distances across the ocean in tankers ... directly burning fossil fuel in vehicles is more efficient than burning it to generate, transmit, and charge batteries with electricity ...
Because charging stations don’t exist in a free market. Billions of taxpayer dollars were spent on these chargers and less than 10 were built because of corruption and bureaucracy. LOL, ironically this may be the best investment of taxpayer dollars ever made to help cut off the EV subsidies.
Except for the small problem of electricity to charge them. All fuel,is imported.
“waited 45 minutes for it to charge”
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This is the biggest “no sale” of many for most people.
Iys just plain ‘ol not practical.
Most EV people cannot grasp where the other end of that charge cable is connected either.
Why?
Because EVs aren’t really about saving the planet.
Duh.
I know the answer to this one.
Hawaii is a blue state so poor & unconsidered decisions are made to virtue signal. Someone else’s money is supposed to make that choice viable.
No charging station at my home so I buy an electric car and then I am shocked... I tell you, shocked...to find there are no convenient charging stations & charging takes 45 min. LOL =
Almost everybody in Hawaii have some solar power in their homes. Solar panels abound here.
Since when is it the responsibility of the government to put up gas stations or charging stations for cars or feed depots for horses for that matter?
Since the islands are small, and people cannot go on long trips, why not just use the plug-in feature and charge over-night? Why do you need commercial chargers? The grid support issue is the same either way.
So what about Hawaii, and this "poor" Uber driver? Well, she wants to "re-charge" from hydrocarbons too. Just by going through some additional steps.....
Turns out ---
"Despite having the third-lowest total energy consumption among the states, Hawaii uses 16 times more energy than it produces.""Hawaii has the highest average electricity price of any state, more than triple the U.S. average price. The state's electricity use is the fourth lowest in the nation."
"Petroleum accounts for about 90% of Hawaii's total energy consumption, the highest share for any state."
Source: Hawaii State Energy Profile US Energy Information Administration
Rosie Ramirez's electric vehicle is "re-charged" from Hawaii's power grid, powered in large part by PETROLEUM.
This is where solar panels and EV chargers can make sense, despite the rain.
Another business decision would be to sell the Jeep she isn’t using to fund buying a charging station for her home. If she owns and is not renting. Once a charging station is installed, is it portable enough to take with you when you move, like a washer/dryer, or is it more like a driveway or a door that you pretty much leave behind?
EV owners are most likely to have a nervous breakdown worrying about their next charge location ,LOL
Looking up charge rates at a couple of the fast chargers in Oahu, I'm seeing 64¢/kWh. According to the official utility's site for EV charging rates at home it's almost 14¢/kWh. A difference of 50¢/kWh. So she won't make back the supposed $2K cost to setup a home charger until she's consumed 4,000 kWh for EV charging. Assuming she gets about 3.5 miles/kWh like I get in mine (after 10% loss converting AC to DC while charging), we're talking 14K miles. At 200 miles per day (assuming she's making money ferrying people around) we're talking 70 days (12 weeks of working/ferrying 5 days).
Something doesn't work right in the math or she'd be paying the cost to charge at home. This smells of typical AP gaslighting (pardon the pun) for EV charging govt dollars.
Another good reason to dismiss use of an EV. The hits just seem to keep on happening. Hopefully what I am hearing is true;that the U.S. manufacturers are cutting back on EV production. I can hardly wait to see how EVs will fare on the used car lots. I wouldn’t touch one with a 10 foot pole myself. It would be good to start seeing more gas-powered vehicles start showing up on used car lots.
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