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Maybe I am in the long tail of car users, but so is everyone else where I live. Driving longer distances is the norm here. EVs are getting closer and I've bee

Maybe I am in the long tail of car users, but so is everyone else where I live. Driving longer distances is the norm here. EVs are getting closer and I've been waiting for them to get to where I can use them. I only have one vehicle, and don't want to buy another one just to drive around town. But getting stuck somewhere in the middle of the forest because I misjudged the range is not something I want to have happen.

brokensegue 7y ago
Where do you live?
WorldMaker 7y ago
That's largely what I meant by "long tail". You clearly aren't an outlier, there are lots of folks in the long tail as is the nature of most long tail distributions. I may have been a bit flippant because there are lots of people in the long tail and almost every thread very easily devolves into (obviously valid and personally meaningful) anecdotal discussions of lives out in the long tail. I certainly sympathize, I learned to drive while living in a rural American house that was 30-70 miles from practically anywhere at all. But the article here makes a good point that to some extent no other transportation system in history has been so subservient to the long tail, and no other transportation transition so completely weighed down in every discussion with anecdata from heavy users and/or nostalgic fondness for high-sigma deviations from personal mean trips. So my apologies for being curt in my previous reply, as I didn't perceive your argument from anecdote a useful addition to the discussion. Which isn't to say that I don't understand your point, but that it's one of many that comes out of the woodwork all the time in these discussions (you aren't an outlier, you are one of many in the long tail). My real point was, "What are you planning to do about it?" You have related your status quo. You have provided enough evidence that changing that status quo is a step change that will require good consideration and possibly plenty of effort. That status quo is your "normal", certainly, but it's also not the "way it has always been" that it feels to be. What would someone's ancestors in that region have done before the invention of the car? Before gas stations were dependable/reliable infrastructure in that region? That wasn't as long ago as it seems (especially when cultural long term memory elides "short term problems" like the 70s oil crisis; the current "reliability" of ICE vehicles is a fascinating blip in history). Are you bringing up your dependency on ICE vehicles to lament a status quo you don't think you have the power to change (in which case, why bring it up at all?) or to figure out what that step transition might entail in personal trade-offs versus your current dependencies? (It's not entirely unfair to compare modern America's dependency/addiction to ICE vehicles versus it's long and many, recurring dependency/addiction cycles to nicotine smoking. So far you have told us, you only own one vehicle and don't believe you can go "cold turkey" on gas. Do you really feel that you need to quit or are you happy with your addiction? Or can you find middle ground that isn't just "cold turkey"?) Apologies for such a lengthy digression into what may feel to you to perhaps be rhetorical questions. My curiosity here is genuine now that I'm over the initial anger that you immediately went to argument by anecdote, and my suggestion was very genuine in the immediately previous post that there are ways to "get better" if you came into the discussion in good faith looking for solutions today rather than just complaining about some status quo you don't think you can change.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  If you will excuse answering an anecdote with another anecdote: I had a really cool conversation once with someone that does roadside assistance in rural Idaho/Montana. They were telling me about a guy that had them on speed dial because he loved his Tesla and his favorite drive to visit friends and family he drove two or three times a year obviously didn't have enough superchargers along the way. This guy decided it was cheaper to pay for a tow at the end of the range of his car to the next nearest charge spot than to reroute. He was doing it often enough that he would often call ahead by a week or two and the tow truck would just be there waiting in his usual spot. He was doing it often enough that the roadside assistance folks were even looking into ways to do some sort of mobile charging for the guy as just another assistance service they could provide not just to that particular Tesla owner but maybe even for other future users, as that would presumably be a growing mini-industry in rural Idaho/Montana. There are stories if you look for them of the same sorts of "early adopters" needing tows between gas stations in those same exact areas. It isn't a "new" phenomenon with electric cars, and there are all sorts of industry solutions if we work together to solve such things.

brokensegue 7y ago

Where do you live?

WorldMaker 7y ago

That's largely what I meant by "long tail". You clearly aren't an outlier, there are lots of folks in the long tail as is the nature of most long tail distributions. I may have been a bit flippant because there are lots of people in the long tail and almost every thread very easily devolves into (obviously valid and personally meaningful) anecdotal discussions of lives out in the long tail. I certainly sympathize, I learned to drive while living in a rural American house that was 30-70 miles from practically anywhere at all. But the article here makes a good point that to some extent no other transportation system in history has been so subservient to the long tail, and no other transportation transition so completely weighed down in every discussion with anecdata from heavy users and/or nostalgic fondness for high-sigma deviations from personal mean trips. So my apologies for being curt in my previous reply, as I didn't perceive your argument from anecdote a useful addition to the discussion. Which isn't to say that I don't understand your point, but that it's one of many that comes out of the woodwork all the time in these discussions (you aren't an outlier, you are one of many in the long tail). My real point was, "What are you planning to do about it?" You have related your status quo. You have provided enough evidence that changing that status quo is a step change that will require good consideration and possibly plenty of effort. That status quo is your "normal", certainly, but it's also not the "way it has always been" that it feels to be. What would someone's ancestors in that region have done before the invention of the car? Before gas stations were dependable/reliable infrastructure in that region? That wasn't as long ago as it seems (especially when cultural long term memory elides "short term problems" like the 70s oil crisis; the current "reliability" of ICE vehicles is a fascinating blip in history). Are you bringing up your dependency on ICE vehicles to lament a status quo you don't think you have the power to change (in which case, why bring it up at all?) or to figure out what that step transition might entail in personal trade-offs versus your current dependencies? (It's not entirely unfair to compare modern America's dependency/addiction to ICE vehicles versus it's long and many, recurring dependency/addiction cycles to nicotine smoking. So far you have told us, you only own one vehicle and don't believe you can go "cold turkey" on gas. Do you really feel that you need to quit or are you happy with your addiction? Or can you find middle ground that isn't just "cold turkey"?) Apologies for such a lengthy digression into what may feel to you to perhaps be rhetorical questions. My curiosity here is genuine now that I'm over the initial anger that you immediately went to argument by anecdote, and my suggestion was very genuine in the immediately previous post that there are ways to "get better" if you came into the discussion in good faith looking for solutions today rather than just complaining about some status quo you don't think you can change.

WorldMaker 7y ago
If you will excuse answering an anecdote with another anecdote: I had a really cool conversation once with someone that does roadside assistance in rural Idaho/Montana. They were telling me about a guy that had them on speed dial because he loved his Tesla and his favorite drive to visit friends and family he drove two or three times a year obviously didn't have enough superchargers along the way. This guy decided it was cheaper to pay for a tow at the end of the range of his car to the next nearest charge spot than to reroute. He was doing it often enough that he would often call ahead by a week or two and the tow truck would just be there waiting in his usual spot. He was doing it often enough that the roadside assistance folks were even looking into ways to do some sort of mobile charging for the guy as just another assistance service they could provide not just to that particular Tesla owner but maybe even for other future users, as that would presumably be a growing mini-industry in rural Idaho/Montana. There are stories if you look for them of the same sorts of "early adopters" needing tows between gas stations in those same exact areas. It isn't a "new" phenomenon with electric cars, and there are all sorts of industry solutions if we work together to solve such things.