As to point #2, without trying to come off smart – the main reason why this is brought up is because you’re set in those ways.
In reality, for the vast majority of journeys, you won’t need to charge in the first place, and if you do, you don’t “fill” it all the way up. You charge as much mileage as you need (in modern EVs, 10 minutes give you 65-100 miles range depending on the model), and fill up at home. If you can’t, it’s still just 35 minutes charging for around 250 miles range.
That means that you need to charge for 10 minutes for a 350-400 mile journey. If you constantly do longer journeys than that, obviously you’re not the main “target” for an EV. I’d argue that the vast majority here does not do regular 500+ mile journeys.
For me personally, that slight inconvenience is made up tenfold by the running costs, especially in these times, where we simply can’t afford to fill up for £200+ per month anymore. Yes, you go further with a full tank of petrol, but you pay considerably more each mile.
Just quickly, no, there’s not 9000 petrol stations in the UK. There’s 8300. That’s almost a 10% overestimate. Second, if 8300 petrol stations is used as an argument for availability.. there’s over 29.000 chargers in the UK, at over 18.000 locations, with almost 50.000 connections, so 8300 petrol stations/locations is really not that great as an argument. We have considerably more chargers around us than petrol stations. Closer, too.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.