5 ms·

EVs themselves are ready, the infrastructure is still a limiting factor. We need to keep working until range anxiety isn't an issue

ianai 6y ago
I’m hoping society gets off its laurels and seriously invests in infrastructure ASAP. I also wish someone was looking for work for the displaced workers from electrification. I did have an idea - “Electrification as a service.” But you’d probably have to be Tesla to go down that path.
riffraff 6y ago
Not just range anxiety, I literally wouldn't know where to charge my electric car since I live in a city and have neither my own garden nor a garage, I would have to put some cable out of my window across the street. There are a few charging stations around my neighborhood but there are a ton more cars.
- mprovost 6y ago
  Here in London people do run cables out of their windows (or at least from their house) to cars parked on the street. The more considerate ones will use a safety cover but I also just see cables running out of houses across the footpath to an EV.
- qmarchi 6y ago
  I have the same situation, I can't charge it at my apartment. Usually, I end up just spending ~40 minutes at the local KIA dealership that has a level 3 charger. If I had access to the office, I'd end up charging there as well.
- wrkronmiller 6y ago
  Same problem in Manhattan. An electric car would be great for quick trips to nearby mountains for snowboarding/hiking, but finding _any_ parking spot near home can be a nightmare, let alone having to find one near one of the few charging stations we have.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Don’t own a car in Manhattan? One can always rent an EV for road trips.
- arrosenberg 6y ago
  In my apartment complex the electric utility installed about three dozen charging stations (which is massively overbuilt for how many electrics there are). It probably makes the most sense for the local utility to wire up any large parking structures and some percentage of street parking. Suburbanites can install a car charger on their property, and is not a massive expense. Also, most-if-not-all electrics can charge over 110v, it just takes forever.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  You are literally confirming his point - we need charging stations at all parking spots. If you own the parking spot, you can usually install a car charger.
  - twblalock 6y ago
    > If you own the parking spot, you can usually install a car charger. That's not always the case. Even in Silicon Valley, where electric cars are popular, a lot of condo HOAs will not allow chargers to be installed. They require upgrading the electrical infrastructure of the property in some cases -- most buildings cannot handle installing 10 or 20 chargers, which might all be in use at the same time. As a matter of scale, it's very different from installing a charger or two in the garage of a house. Of course, even if that problem went away, that would still only solve the problem for people who own their parking spaces. What are renters supposed to do? Until the infrastructure problem is solved, electric cars only really make sense for homeowners.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      Yup, it needs to be city wide and nationsl effort.
- dawnerd 6y ago
  Plugshare can help with that.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  This was my issue as well until I had a home. Work had two charging spots for a 25 story building (13 story parking structure). To be honest, the spots are work were often used only by people needing to charge but I would always be scared of forgetting and making someone else's day worse.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  There is, literally, an app for that. Dozens in fact. Plugshare and A Better Route Planner are the least bad ones. Also many cars have a built-in POI list for charging points.
_ph_ 6y ago
Considering how quickly Tesla built up an infrastructure without having much money, it should not be a huge task given the money the large companies even spend for advertising only.
beezle 6y ago
It is not just range anxiety. Most people do not want to wait the length of time it takes to charge up. And IIRC, 'fast charge' has very negative effects on battery life. And nobody can bring you a container of electrons if you do run out of juice on the road.
- burstmode 6y ago
  In Germany, they are working on "containers of electrons": https://www.inside-digital.de/news/hyundai-adac-mobile-charger-hilfe-fuer-elektroautos-ohne-energie https://www.inside-digital.de/news/hyundai-adac-mobile-charg...
  - beezle 6y ago
    That is interesting but seems like it would be impractical from a business perspective. Unless I misunderstand the translation, it could only charge one, maybe two vehicles, enough to (hopefully) make it to a charging station. A regular tow truck/wrecker can carry 20 gallons of gas in just 2-4 containers to provide 10 cars 2 gallons each, probably good for 50-60 miles in most vehicles.
- dawnerd 6y ago
  Most people won’t be waiting for a charge since you do it over night and have what you need each morning. DC fast charging can be bad but it depends on a lot of factors - it’s also a lot faster than people think. Often your car will be charged enough before you have time to eat a quick snack or use the restroom. There’s also this misconception that you have to charge all the way up. Doing so will do more long term damage to your pack and take forever the higher the SoC.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  The Chinese auto maker NIO already has battery swap stations and a service that will drive a charger to your location with a container of electrons and charge your car. Fully Charged on YouTube had a video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw
jillesvangurp 6y ago
I think range anxiety is more of a psychological/imaginary disorder than a technical challenge. I come from the Netherlands. Most EVs there have a range that would put you way past its borders no matter where you are in the country. Even the cheap & shitty ones. This is of course not something most people do very often in any case. So, you'd expect range anxiety to be less of a concern in the Netherlands. It's not. People are somehow really dreading having to (predictably) stop for a 45 minute charging stop in the rare case they actually do have their trip exceed the maximum range (again, unlikely if you leave on a full charge and don't plan to leave the country). It will tell you when you step into the car what your range is and you can plan right then and there where to stop for lunch/coffee. Most EV drivers do exactly that. Problem solved. ICE car drivers don't do that and typically just have unreliable data instead. You might have 70 km of range or 20. Hard to tell when the needle is close to 0. You might be going up hill or downhill and that might affect what the needle says. It doesn't even indicate range, just fuel volume. So, premature/redundant fuel stops are probably more common than running out of fuel, or indeed battery. By the time you run out of battery, your car will have been drawing your attention to that for quite some time. So, you'd be right to feel anxious about that happening to you because you'd end up looking like the fool you are. Most drivers take the annoying planned charging stop over that some tens of miles before they'd run out. It's more a case of range annoyance than anxiety. In the end everything has a price and if you can afford to fill up your gas guzzling SUV to burn way more fuel than you'd strictly need to get from A to B, that probably has more to do with other forms of anxiety than with the actual range of the car.
- everdrive 6y ago
  It reminds me a bit of (some) people who think they need a truck. We were going to buy a truck for our (very small) farm, but when we really sat down and thought about the amount of times we'd use it, the number turned out to be 0-3 times a year. In this situation it makes sense to rent, and most of the time, our tiny subcompact does 100% of what we need a car to do. For those few times I may really need a truck, I can probably rent one, or find some other accommodation. Range anxiety is the same -- most of the time, people drive between home and work. For most people, this fits in the range for an electric. If you really want to drive across the country, you can just rent a car, and this will be much cheaper than owning an ICE for how often you'll actually need to do it. If you're lucky enough to have the space and money, and need two cars in the first place, then it makes sense for one to be electric: the one driven most often, and then the ICE vehicle for when electric is not appropriate.

ianai 6y ago

I’m hoping society gets off its laurels and seriously invests in infrastructure ASAP. I also wish someone was looking for work for the displaced workers from electrification. I did have an idea - “Electrification as a service.” But you’d probably have to be Tesla to go down that path.

riffraff 6y ago

Not just range anxiety, I literally wouldn't know where to charge my electric car since I live in a city and have neither my own garden nor a garage, I would have to put some cable out of my window across the street. There are a few charging stations around my neighborhood but there are a ton more cars.

mprovost 6y ago
Here in London people do run cables out of their windows (or at least from their house) to cars parked on the street. The more considerate ones will use a safety cover but I also just see cables running out of houses across the footpath to an EV.
qmarchi 6y ago
I have the same situation, I can't charge it at my apartment. Usually, I end up just spending ~40 minutes at the local KIA dealership that has a level 3 charger. If I had access to the office, I'd end up charging there as well.
wrkronmiller 6y ago
Same problem in Manhattan. An electric car would be great for quick trips to nearby mountains for snowboarding/hiking, but finding _any_ parking spot near home can be a nightmare, let alone having to find one near one of the few charging stations we have.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Don’t own a car in Manhattan? One can always rent an EV for road trips.
arrosenberg 6y ago
In my apartment complex the electric utility installed about three dozen charging stations (which is massively overbuilt for how many electrics there are). It probably makes the most sense for the local utility to wire up any large parking structures and some percentage of street parking. Suburbanites can install a car charger on their property, and is not a massive expense. Also, most-if-not-all electrics can charge over 110v, it just takes forever.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
You are literally confirming his point - we need charging stations at all parking spots. If you own the parking spot, you can usually install a car charger.
- twblalock 6y ago
  > If you own the parking spot, you can usually install a car charger. That's not always the case. Even in Silicon Valley, where electric cars are popular, a lot of condo HOAs will not allow chargers to be installed. They require upgrading the electrical infrastructure of the property in some cases -- most buildings cannot handle installing 10 or 20 chargers, which might all be in use at the same time. As a matter of scale, it's very different from installing a charger or two in the garage of a house. Of course, even if that problem went away, that would still only solve the problem for people who own their parking spaces. What are renters supposed to do? Until the infrastructure problem is solved, electric cars only really make sense for homeowners.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Yup, it needs to be city wide and nationsl effort.
dawnerd 6y ago
Plugshare can help with that.
WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
This was my issue as well until I had a home. Work had two charging spots for a 25 story building (13 story parking structure). To be honest, the spots are work were often used only by people needing to charge but I would always be scared of forgetting and making someone else's day worse.
theshrike79 6y ago
There is, literally, an app for that. Dozens in fact. Plugshare and A Better Route Planner are the least bad ones. Also many cars have a built-in POI list for charging points.

_ph_ 6y ago

Considering how quickly Tesla built up an infrastructure without having much money, it should not be a huge task given the money the large companies even spend for advertising only.

beezle 6y ago

It is not just range anxiety. Most people do not want to wait the length of time it takes to charge up. And IIRC, 'fast charge' has very negative effects on battery life. And nobody can bring you a container of electrons if you do run out of juice on the road.

burstmode 6y ago
In Germany, they are working on "containers of electrons": https://www.inside-digital.de/news/hyundai-adac-mobile-charger-hilfe-fuer-elektroautos-ohne-energie https://www.inside-digital.de/news/hyundai-adac-mobile-charg...
- beezle 6y ago
  That is interesting but seems like it would be impractical from a business perspective. Unless I misunderstand the translation, it could only charge one, maybe two vehicles, enough to (hopefully) make it to a charging station. A regular tow truck/wrecker can carry 20 gallons of gas in just 2-4 containers to provide 10 cars 2 gallons each, probably good for 50-60 miles in most vehicles.
dawnerd 6y ago
Most people won’t be waiting for a charge since you do it over night and have what you need each morning. DC fast charging can be bad but it depends on a lot of factors - it’s also a lot faster than people think. Often your car will be charged enough before you have time to eat a quick snack or use the restroom. There’s also this misconception that you have to charge all the way up. Doing so will do more long term damage to your pack and take forever the higher the SoC.
theshrike79 6y ago
The Chinese auto maker NIO already has battery swap stations and a service that will drive a charger to your location with a container of electrons and charge your car. Fully Charged on YouTube had a video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw

jillesvangurp 6y ago

I think range anxiety is more of a psychological/imaginary disorder than a technical challenge. I come from the Netherlands. Most EVs there have a range that would put you way past its borders no matter where you are in the country. Even the cheap & shitty ones. This is of course not something most people do very often in any case. So, you'd expect range anxiety to be less of a concern in the Netherlands. It's not. People are somehow really dreading having to (predictably) stop for a 45 minute charging stop in the rare case they actually do have their trip exceed the maximum range (again, unlikely if you leave on a full charge and don't plan to leave the country). It will tell you when you step into the car what your range is and you can plan right then and there where to stop for lunch/coffee. Most EV drivers do exactly that. Problem solved. ICE car drivers don't do that and typically just have unreliable data instead. You might have 70 km of range or 20. Hard to tell when the needle is close to 0. You might be going up hill or downhill and that might affect what the needle says. It doesn't even indicate range, just fuel volume. So, premature/redundant fuel stops are probably more common than running out of fuel, or indeed battery. By the time you run out of battery, your car will have been drawing your attention to that for quite some time. So, you'd be right to feel anxious about that happening to you because you'd end up looking like the fool you are. Most drivers take the annoying planned charging stop over that some tens of miles before they'd run out. It's more a case of range annoyance than anxiety. In the end everything has a price and if you can afford to fill up your gas guzzling SUV to burn way more fuel than you'd strictly need to get from A to B, that probably has more to do with other forms of anxiety than with the actual range of the car.

everdrive 6y ago
It reminds me a bit of (some) people who think they need a truck. We were going to buy a truck for our (very small) farm, but when we really sat down and thought about the amount of times we'd use it, the number turned out to be 0-3 times a year. In this situation it makes sense to rent, and most of the time, our tiny subcompact does 100% of what we need a car to do. For those few times I may really need a truck, I can probably rent one, or find some other accommodation. Range anxiety is the same -- most of the time, people drive between home and work. For most people, this fits in the range for an electric. If you really want to drive across the country, you can just rent a car, and this will be much cheaper than owning an ICE for how often you'll actually need to do it. If you're lucky enough to have the space and money, and need two cars in the first place, then it makes sense for one to be electric: the one driven most often, and then the ICE vehicle for when electric is not appropriate.