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> A large fraction of cars have never been driven on a 500 mile trip. Consumers base buying decisions on the longest trip they expect to take. Even if 360 day

> A large fraction of cars have never been driven on a 500 mile trip. Consumers base buying decisions on the longest trip they expect to take. Even if 360 days a year they commute for 10 miles, and then for 4th of July / Thanksgiving / winter holidays they take an extended 300+ mile road trip, they will consider a car capable of traveling 300+ miles.

nathan_long 8y ago
Maybe the business model is the problem. If instead of owning a car, you use a car sharing model, you could use an EV car most days, swap for a pickup truck for a yard project, and swap for a gas car for your road trip (until EVs get that much range).
quasse 8y ago
That makes it sound like a marketing / consumer optics problem then, not an engineering one. When I was a kid my dad drove and older classic car daily, and for any trip longer than ~300 miles he would just get a rental and put the miles on that. If people could get accustomed to that workflow, I think the need for 500 miles+ electric range is almost non-existent. Daily drive the electric car, and spend ~$150 for a gas rental car once or twice a year for the big trip to visit the in-laws.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Yeah but rentals are extremely inconvenient. You need to arrange a ride to the rental place. Most of them close at 5:00pm unless you're close to an airport. So now you're also taking time off work. The paperwork takes at least 20-30 minutes for some ridiculous reason. They will try to upsell you on a larger vehicle, extra insurance, etc. It's a pain. Once or twice a year it's tolerable. If you get to doing it monthly or more, it's becomes a major detractor.
  - outworlder 8y ago
    > The paperwork takes at least 20-30 minutes for some ridiculous reason. I am guessing you are not in the US. Over there, most big rental companies will let you join their program, club, or whatever they want to call it, for free(online, even). Which means you are pre-screened. You can pre-decline all this stuff you are talking about. Then, you just make a reservation online, walk to the parking lot, pick your car, and just hand your id for them to check when leaving the parking lot. The whole process takes a couple of minutes really. When you are back, you just park at the dropoff location and walk away. At no point you have to bother with going to the counter. The business hours can be inconvenient, I agree.
outworlder 8y ago
> Consumers base buying decisions on the longest trip they expect to take. Which makes little sense. I am frequently asked about this. Look, I'm optimizing for 99% of the trips I take, which are inside cities. The odd roadtrip? I'll take the savings from not having to pay for gas (workplace charges nothing) and just rent a car for that odd trip. Most rentals have unlimited miles anyway. And that's because I have an earlier generation Leaf. A Tesla would be no issue.

nathan_long 8y ago

Maybe the business model is the problem. If instead of owning a car, you use a car sharing model, you could use an EV car most days, swap for a pickup truck for a yard project, and swap for a gas car for your road trip (until EVs get that much range).

quasse 8y ago

That makes it sound like a marketing / consumer optics problem then, not an engineering one. When I was a kid my dad drove and older classic car daily, and for any trip longer than ~300 miles he would just get a rental and put the miles on that. If people could get accustomed to that workflow, I think the need for 500 miles+ electric range is almost non-existent. Daily drive the electric car, and spend ~$150 for a gas rental car once or twice a year for the big trip to visit the in-laws.

ams6110 8y ago
Yeah but rentals are extremely inconvenient. You need to arrange a ride to the rental place. Most of them close at 5:00pm unless you're close to an airport. So now you're also taking time off work. The paperwork takes at least 20-30 minutes for some ridiculous reason. They will try to upsell you on a larger vehicle, extra insurance, etc. It's a pain. Once or twice a year it's tolerable. If you get to doing it monthly or more, it's becomes a major detractor.
- outworlder 8y ago
  > The paperwork takes at least 20-30 minutes for some ridiculous reason. I am guessing you are not in the US. Over there, most big rental companies will let you join their program, club, or whatever they want to call it, for free(online, even). Which means you are pre-screened. You can pre-decline all this stuff you are talking about. Then, you just make a reservation online, walk to the parking lot, pick your car, and just hand your id for them to check when leaving the parking lot. The whole process takes a couple of minutes really. When you are back, you just park at the dropoff location and walk away. At no point you have to bother with going to the counter. The business hours can be inconvenient, I agree.

outworlder 8y ago

> Consumers base buying decisions on the longest trip they expect to take. Which makes little sense. I am frequently asked about this. Look, I'm optimizing for 99% of the trips I take, which are inside cities. The odd roadtrip? I'll take the savings from not having to pay for gas (workplace charges nothing) and just rent a car for that odd trip. Most rentals have unlimited miles anyway. And that's because I have an earlier generation Leaf. A Tesla would be no issue.