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I won't go somewhere with my EV unless I can get back without charging or there are 2 DC fast-chargers at different installation sites in the area I'm going. 2

I won't go somewhere with my EV unless I can get back without charging or there are 2 DC fast-chargers at different installation sites in the area I'm going. 2 chargers in the same parking lot are more likely to be 'down' for the same maintenance issue simultaneously. I still find DC fast-chargers are unreliable compared to gas pumps and there are far fewer of them. Though I will say the Evgo chargers at Whole-Foods/Amazon have been great. About 1/3 of the time I'm doing this, I end up waiting in line for 20-45 minutes behind someone else anyway before I can start charging. I imagine this will only worsen if more infrastructure isn't built. My wife and I have 2 vehicles, and only one is EV largely because of this issue. There are too many places I can't go with an EV without significant risk of being stranded. Stranded in this case may mean waiting 4 hours to charge up at the more common Level-2 chargers.

cptskippy 8y ago
And if you should receive a call that a member of your family was in an accident and at the hospital in critical condition... "Sure ok I'll be there this evening."
- gregable 8y ago
  This is a false dichotomy. One's own vehicle is far from one's only mode of transportation.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    For those with the means yes. Not everyone can afford an Uber/Lyft across town or state. My EV can get me to the airport and with a bit of charging only just get me home. A ride share is $40+ off peak. Public transit isn't an option. If I lived further out in the suburbs such a trip wouldn't be possible without more prolonged charging. You might balk at dropping $40+ spontaneously but a lot of people don't. I remember working a salaried position and still not being able to afford a spontaneous invitation to lunch with coworkers and I have never in my life been in financial trouble. EVs might be practical in a dense Urban setting with access to Public transit but the further you are from urban centers the less practical it becomes exponentially.
    - Cerium 8y ago
      If my wife's in the hospital I'll find the cash for a taxi. The fact that EVs are practical in dense urban settings is great since those have the largest air quality problems that can be addressed by the centralized (or green) power generation that EVs utilize.
  - 0xffff2 8y ago
    This is really dependent on where you are. Where I live in Mountain View you're absolutely right. Where my dad lives 20 minutes from a paved road in the middle of California with no cell service, his truck is quite literally his only mode of transportation. Of course these are extremes, but most people live somewhere in the middle. Owning an EV will never be less limiting than owning an ICE vehicle. Whether it's an acceptable trade off will always be an individual decision.
    - lovemenot 8y ago
      >> Owning an EV will never be less limiting than owning an ICE vehicle. Never may be too strong a word. Electricity is likely to continue flowing to more locations for longer than petrol stations will continue to get restocked.
      - smogcutter 8y ago
        EVs are more infrastructure dependent, though. Much easier to store a little emergency gas than electricity.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
- gnopgnip 8y ago
  Plugin hybrids exist and cover both the use case of commuting on electric and gas for long trips. They aren't zero emissions then but for regular use they are close to it.
andrei_says_ 8y ago
I imagine a live charger status network/app would be a good thing to have.
- gregable 8y ago
  That exists, but also is unreliable. I've seen chargers that believe they are operational but the card reader is broken for example, so there is no way to authenticate. There is a DC fast-charger at a walgreens not far from where I live that is broken 90% of the time (*not scientific) and always reports available online.
rconti 8y ago
It's for this very reason that we've got a Model 3 arriving soon. It wasn't until I looked a bit more into the charging infrastructure that I realized that today's non-Tesla electric vehicles are effectively commuter/errand cars only. Without truly fast supercharging-style charge rates, you can't really take other electrics on a roadtrip. Some people might consider 1-2 45min supercharging stops between SF and San Diego to be too much to tolerate, but wait until you tell them they've got to wait 3 or 4+ hours at a chargepoint station instead -- especially given that the charging infra isn't as tightly coupled to the in-car experience (maps, realtime charger info, etc). I don't feel like I can trust random public chargers to exist and be available. Even at work, where we have 14 chargepoint chargers, they're all taken by 9am. I'm sure if I got plugged in (hah!) to the correct slack groups I'd be able to figure out when I can shuffle my car in, but realistically, you can only rely on home charging today.
- gregable 8y ago
  The DC fast-chargers are pretty good for me. I drive an 3y old Leaf with 85mi range, so I get an 80% charge in about 20 minutes though, which is hardly a big deal. It'll take me 5-10 to gas up as is, and usually the chargers are somewhere I can grab a coffee or whatnot while it's going.
  - rconti 8y ago
    Well, two things: 1. I assume you're probably only using 60 or maybe 70mi, tops, of that range -- so you're talking minimum charging 3-4x as often as you'd be filling up with a gas car. (yes, I recognize that you probably change at home most of the time; of course, the shorter the range the more likely it is that you'll need to charge 'on the road' rather than at home) 2. What do you mean by DC fast-charge? In researching ChargePoint (I just became a member), it looks like most stations are 220v and something like 20a; even the ones that have higher current feeds are typically split in half if 2 cars are using it. I agree, 20 minutes to charge is hardly an unreasonable amount of time, considering how rarely one should have to charge away from home. But on a roadtrip, again, 20mins every hour starts adding up really fast. Generally, though, I think people should spend less time worrying about day-to-day charging time (as opposed to roadtrip charging time), because they ignore fuelling time of gas cars. Let's say you spend 5 minutes a week filling up your gas car. That's 4 1/3 hours per year filling up (assuming we ignore any special trips made to the gas station. Thankfully we live across the street from one, but it's still not unusual to hop in the car after dinner and spend 10min driving to get gas to prepare for a trip the next day just to have one less thing to do in the morning, for example). Vs with an electric car where your charging time is effectively 0 if you plug it in at home every night or once a week or whatever. Then, of course, on a roadtrip, the times are flipped; do a thousand miles and you might only spend 15-20mins fuelling a gas car but maybe 2h charging an electric (depending on charge rate, again.. this is more supercharger speed we're talking about). My father (long since retired) actually loves the charging breaks with his Model S on roadtrips; 1-2x 45min stops along the way from San Diego to Phoenix, or San Diego to SF, for example. He likes relaxing, stretching, chatting with other owners, .. feels in less of a hurry to race to his destination, etc. I'm sure a lot of this is down to the novelty factor and justifying one's purchase, but I also get it-- it's just a different way of thinking.
greglindahl 8y ago
It sure doesn't sound like you're driving an EV with a 300 mile range, which is what this thread started talking about.

cptskippy 8y ago

And if you should receive a call that a member of your family was in an accident and at the hospital in critical condition... "Sure ok I'll be there this evening."

gregable 8y ago
This is a false dichotomy. One's own vehicle is far from one's only mode of transportation.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  For those with the means yes. Not everyone can afford an Uber/Lyft across town or state. My EV can get me to the airport and with a bit of charging only just get me home. A ride share is $40+ off peak. Public transit isn't an option. If I lived further out in the suburbs such a trip wouldn't be possible without more prolonged charging. You might balk at dropping $40+ spontaneously but a lot of people don't. I remember working a salaried position and still not being able to afford a spontaneous invitation to lunch with coworkers and I have never in my life been in financial trouble. EVs might be practical in a dense Urban setting with access to Public transit but the further you are from urban centers the less practical it becomes exponentially.
  - Cerium 8y ago
    If my wife's in the hospital I'll find the cash for a taxi. The fact that EVs are practical in dense urban settings is great since those have the largest air quality problems that can be addressed by the centralized (or green) power generation that EVs utilize.
- 0xffff2 8y ago
  This is really dependent on where you are. Where I live in Mountain View you're absolutely right. Where my dad lives 20 minutes from a paved road in the middle of California with no cell service, his truck is quite literally his only mode of transportation. Of course these are extremes, but most people live somewhere in the middle. Owning an EV will never be less limiting than owning an ICE vehicle. Whether it's an acceptable trade off will always be an individual decision.
  - lovemenot 8y ago
    >> Owning an EV will never be less limiting than owning an ICE vehicle. Never may be too strong a word. Electricity is likely to continue flowing to more locations for longer than petrol stations will continue to get restocked.
    - smogcutter 8y ago
      EVs are more infrastructure dependent, though. Much easier to store a little emergency gas than electricity.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
gnopgnip 8y ago
Plugin hybrids exist and cover both the use case of commuting on electric and gas for long trips. They aren't zero emissions then but for regular use they are close to it.

andrei_says_ 8y ago

I imagine a live charger status network/app would be a good thing to have.

gregable 8y ago
That exists, but also is unreliable. I've seen chargers that believe they are operational but the card reader is broken for example, so there is no way to authenticate. There is a DC fast-charger at a walgreens not far from where I live that is broken 90% of the time (*not scientific) and always reports available online.

rconti 8y ago

It's for this very reason that we've got a Model 3 arriving soon. It wasn't until I looked a bit more into the charging infrastructure that I realized that today's non-Tesla electric vehicles are effectively commuter/errand cars only. Without truly fast supercharging-style charge rates, you can't really take other electrics on a roadtrip. Some people might consider 1-2 45min supercharging stops between SF and San Diego to be too much to tolerate, but wait until you tell them they've got to wait 3 or 4+ hours at a chargepoint station instead -- especially given that the charging infra isn't as tightly coupled to the in-car experience (maps, realtime charger info, etc). I don't feel like I can trust random public chargers to exist and be available. Even at work, where we have 14 chargepoint chargers, they're all taken by 9am. I'm sure if I got plugged in (hah!) to the correct slack groups I'd be able to figure out when I can shuffle my car in, but realistically, you can only rely on home charging today.

gregable 8y ago
The DC fast-chargers are pretty good for me. I drive an 3y old Leaf with 85mi range, so I get an 80% charge in about 20 minutes though, which is hardly a big deal. It'll take me 5-10 to gas up as is, and usually the chargers are somewhere I can grab a coffee or whatnot while it's going.
- rconti 8y ago
  Well, two things: 1. I assume you're probably only using 60 or maybe 70mi, tops, of that range -- so you're talking minimum charging 3-4x as often as you'd be filling up with a gas car. (yes, I recognize that you probably change at home most of the time; of course, the shorter the range the more likely it is that you'll need to charge 'on the road' rather than at home) 2. What do you mean by DC fast-charge? In researching ChargePoint (I just became a member), it looks like most stations are 220v and something like 20a; even the ones that have higher current feeds are typically split in half if 2 cars are using it. I agree, 20 minutes to charge is hardly an unreasonable amount of time, considering how rarely one should have to charge away from home. But on a roadtrip, again, 20mins every hour starts adding up really fast. Generally, though, I think people should spend less time worrying about day-to-day charging time (as opposed to roadtrip charging time), because they ignore fuelling time of gas cars. Let's say you spend 5 minutes a week filling up your gas car. That's 4 1/3 hours per year filling up (assuming we ignore any special trips made to the gas station. Thankfully we live across the street from one, but it's still not unusual to hop in the car after dinner and spend 10min driving to get gas to prepare for a trip the next day just to have one less thing to do in the morning, for example). Vs with an electric car where your charging time is effectively 0 if you plug it in at home every night or once a week or whatever. Then, of course, on a roadtrip, the times are flipped; do a thousand miles and you might only spend 15-20mins fuelling a gas car but maybe 2h charging an electric (depending on charge rate, again.. this is more supercharger speed we're talking about). My father (long since retired) actually loves the charging breaks with his Model S on roadtrips; 1-2x 45min stops along the way from San Diego to Phoenix, or San Diego to SF, for example. He likes relaxing, stretching, chatting with other owners, .. feels in less of a hurry to race to his destination, etc. I'm sure a lot of this is down to the novelty factor and justifying one's purchase, but I also get it-- it's just a different way of thinking.

greglindahl 8y ago

It sure doesn't sound like you're driving an EV with a 300 mile range, which is what this thread started talking about.