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The real issue is charge times. Gas fillups take a few minutes at most - meaning no long lines. Once charges are close to that speed I think EVs will really t

The real issue is charge times. Gas fillups take a few minutes at most - meaning no long lines. Once charges are close to that speed I think EVs will really take off.

imglorp 6y ago
On the road for long trips, yes absolutely. But the EV usecase also includes low and medium speed charging at home overnight, and while at your destination (say a retailer) which you can't do with your ICE car. So overlapping but not identical comparison.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  You're making many assumptions here. 1st, you're assuming people can charge at home - assuming they have a garage and access to power. This isn't true for a huge portion of the population. > and while at your destination (say a retailer) which you can't do with your ICE car. So overlapping but not identical comparison. This really isn't available yet either. Who's going to pay for this? Really?
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    > 1st, you're assuming people can charge at home - assuming they have a garage and access to power. This isn't true for a huge portion of the population. So what, figuring out how people without a designated parking space can change their car is trivial compared to trying to undo global warming. Also Covid has shown us how much disruption we can actually tolerate, hint: a lot more than the powers that be want you to believe.
    - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
      This is a textbook strawman. > So what, figuring out how people without a designated parking space can change their car is trivial compared to trying to undo global warming. No it isn't. NYC has limited space. There simply isn't enough room for a charger for every car. That is a nontrivial problem with extreme cost. You can't just handwave it away.
      - smileysteve 6y ago
        NYC and San Francisco are about as strawman as it gets, because the cars AND trips per capita are some of the lowest in the U.S.
        ntsplnkv2 6y ago
        Because of the infrastructure surrounding it - e.g. fleets of cars taxis, public transit, etc. In other words, better options than having an owning an EV, which, if you pay attention, is what we're talking about here.
        warkdarrior 6y ago
        > fleets of cars taxis, public transit Surely in those settings the best option is for the taxi companies and the public transit providers to shift to EVs.
        smileysteve 6y ago
        > In other words, better options than having an owning an EV is what we're talking about here. Nope. The topic is about mass adoption. Not mass adoption by people who take trains or taxi in a certain city. Even within this sub thread, it's comparing the "ease" of getting fuel and parking in nyc (neither of which are actually easy) to which charging is a mass hurdle. Are there people who don't have access to power and security at a parking spot who drive more than 100 miles a day (and drivers that use bottles and get blood clots instead of stopping for 1hr every 250 miles), sure, but that's not the mass, it's somewhere <5%. And roughly a smaller population to whom don't need a car on a regular basis at all.
        ascorbic 6y ago
        I don't think anyone is suggesting you buy an EV if you don't need a car at all. It's about replacing an ICE car. If you have one of those, you must be parking it somewhere already.
      - Gibbon1 6y ago
        I spent 25 years living in San Francisco. What I know is I put about 6000 miles a year on my car. Of which about 4000 was around the city. Assuming a city dweller with a car charged it every 200 miles, that's be once every two and half weeks. That doesn't seem impossible, just merely inconvenient. On the same level of having to wash your clothes at a laundromat. It's thing, if you live in a real city, it's not the Suburbs.
  - bogdanu 6y ago
    > This really isn't available yet either. Who's going to pay for this? Really? In Europe some retailers have this, sure, for 2 or 3 parking spots. If the demand is there, I'm pretty sure they'll expand it, even as a paid/loyality bonus. I don't expect them to offer superchaging but 50-60 km/h charge would be more than enough.
    - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
      2 or 3 parking spots. It's a token gesture, not meaningful infrastructure. Electrifying an entire parking lot is a lot more expensive than 2 or 3 spots.
      - theshrike79 6y ago
        You don't need to electrify the entire parking lot. Even if you do, not every parking spot needs to have a 350kW HPC charger. 11-22kW is more than enough. Add load balancing and maybe a battery in the future and you're good. The handful of spots is part greenwashing part gauging the demand. They do track the usage of those spots and increase the amount if they see that they're in use and driving business.
  - natch 6y ago
    I don’t think they claimed that everyone has access at home. They said “the use case includes” which doesn’t exclude other possibilities. There are many great options for charging if you choose your car wisely. Our apartment building with six parking spaces has three Teslas and no charging on site. We do just fine. Charging takes about 15 seconds of my day on work days. And on the occasion when I need more, it’s quick and I can grab a few minutes (like, 10 or 15) of a youtube video or Netflix while charging. Or step into a store and do an errand while charging. In 10 minutes I can get about 100 miles of charge. I often go to our nearby Target (a store in the US) which has a supercharger right in the parking lot, and I don’t charge, even though I’m already there shopping right where the charger is. Why? No need. Already charged. It’s not that difficult. Notice I never said this will work for everyone. But it works for some, with no assumption about having chargers at home. >Who’s going to pay? Sometimes you pay per kilowatt. Other times you’re charged per minute, like 3 cents a minute or so which includes parking. Other places it’s free and advertising on nearby signs subsidies for it. Or employers pay for it as a work benefit. One network (Chargepoint) covers most of this stuff.
    - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
      This is what always happens when I bring up product problems about EVs. Everyone on HN who owns a luxury car Tesla in SV or some major metro with their six figure plus salary gets all bent out of shape, and ask "omg why can't everyone do this!" It's tone deaf and out of touch. EVs simply are not there yet. They're ludicrously expensive, inconvenient to refuel, don't offer utility like ICE trucks/SUVs, can't be charged effectively without huge infrastructure investment. I'm not saying we aren't making strides, I'm saying there are loads of improvements that need to come before EVs take over ICE sales to ultimately help us fight global problems. EVs have never been about rich people having a toy. We need cheap EVs now to help us fight global climate change and frankly they aren't there yet. You need to make massive assumptions for the vast majority of Americans to make EVs work compared to ICE vehicles.
      - jtaillon 6y ago
        The thing is, they're not "ludicrously expensive". Sure, Teslas and Porsches and Jaguars are, but you can also get a late-model used Nissan Leaf for under 10k, or a brand new Kia Niro for ~30k after tax credit. That's well within the bell curve of what people spend on ICE cars, used or not. A Leaf might not meet your needs, but it's not like there aren't other options out there. If you factor in longer-term costs like fuel cost, maintenance, and wear-and-tear, the equation tilts even further towards EV. Not to say they shouldn't be cheaper, but they'll definitely get there. We're pretty close to price-parity as is (just not tons of options).
  - jmelloy 6y ago
    I've seen plenty of chargers at malls and Walgreens and other areas. Usually it's a ChargePoint or blink app, which connects through your phone. One of the local malls subsidizes the electricity and charging is free.
  - bartvk 6y ago
    You're also making assumptions, though. Here in The Netherlands, most big cities really appreciate electric cars. Thus, in streets where the demand is big, they add additional charging stations. It's not like charging needs a garage and access to power. Sometimes, the local government is competent enough. So it really depends.
- turtlebits 6y ago
  You cannot get any meaningful charge at at retailer (assuming L2) unless you're there for over an hour, and that only nets you ~20-22 miles.
  - cptskippy 6y ago
    > over an hour, and that only nets you ~20-22 miles. Most modern EVs can do 24-25 miles/hour on L2. How is that not meaningful? The average trip to the grocery store is 41 minutes [1] so that's 15 miles of charge which would negate most or all of the range lost traveling to the store. [1] https://www.creditdonkey.com/grocery-shopping-statistics.html https://www.creditdonkey.com/grocery-shopping-statistics.htm... Stop assuming that anyone plugging their EV into charge is on empty and NEEDS to charge. That's an ICE vehicle use pattern that doesn't apply, people wait until their empty when driving an ICE because they have to make a special trip. With an EV and charging everywhere, you can charge whenever you want.
    - turtlebits 6y ago
      You are assuming EV charging is everywhere, but right now infrastructure is extremely limited. I have yet to see a grocery store with a charging station in Seattle (QFC/Safeway/Whole Foods), and the one I have seen (at a Safeway far north), there were are only 2 spots and power was shared across ports. The reality for me is that L2 charging is currently useless as the places I go do not provide chargers.
      - cptskippy 6y ago
        You're moving the goal post. No the infrastructure isn't in place everywhere and your experience is evidence of that. But it works in other places, my experience is evidence of that. Everyone isn't going to have an EV overnight and there's time to build out reliable infrastructure everywhere.
technofiend 6y ago
Tangentially gas cars are convenient because you just don't have to think about the length of your next trip: there will be gas available wherever you go. Long trips with an EV require planning due to missing infrastructure, longer "fueling" times, and shorter ranges. But if we break out off the assumption that you can go anywhere any time in your electric car because there's another option available (rental? ride sharing? public transportation?) and EVs are at least for now meant for shorter trips then it becomes less of an issue. But you're right - the freedom to just hop in an EV and go isn't here yet. I look forward to when it is. Can't come soon enough for me.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  If we break off the assumption of what most consumers want, sure. But then what would be the point?
  - jeromegv 6y ago
    Over 80-90% of trips are very short in distance. Long distance trips are more of an anomaly for huge majority of people.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Long trips might be an anomaly, but they are a common one in that every person I know takes a couple every year. So a good answer needs to exist or the whole thing dies.
    - whatever1 6y ago
      Over 99% of the time I have 2 people in my car. Yet, I got a car with 4 seats.
tzs 6y ago
To put some numbers on this, you can measure charge rates/fueling rates as number of miles worth of charge/fuel provided per hour of charging/fueling. A Tesla V3 Supercharger can charge at a rate of about 1000 mph or 1600 kph. A 240 volt 48 amp home charger home charger can charge a Model 3 at a rate of 44 mph or 71 kph. A US gas pump can pump a maximum of 10 gallons per minute. If you refill at a station with such a pump, and your car gets 25 mpg (about average for the current US fleet), that's 15000 mph or 24000 kph. Perhaps we should be pushing for plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs) as a transition between ICE and EV. PHEVs have ranges between about 20 and 60 miles on electricity, which for many people is enough to cover all of their normal day to day driving except possibly their commute entirely on electric if they have a place for overnight charging at home, and when they need more range it has the ICE engine.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  The flaw in your reasoning, and most people arguing against BEVs is they envision the demand for charging stations is going to be in any way similar to the demand for gas stations. A regular 120v charger can put 60 miles on an EV overnight which is more than enough for the average commute. I did this for 2 years with a 50 mile round-trip commute. I started each day with 100% charge on my Nissan Leaf, arrived home each night with ~35 miles of range, and plugged it in. When we got our Model 3, we charged exclusively on 120v for about a year and only used a Supercharger on road trips out of state. We're a BEV only household and have used a charging station once in the last 6 months. I took the Leaf out to empty a storage unit 40 miles away and I only stopped for 10 minutes to put enough range so I wasn't coasting home on fumes. I realize that not everyone can charge at home, but a large portion of the population can and that will dramatically reduce the demand for charging stations. When you realize that anywhere you stop for long periods of time (e.g. restaurants, grocery stores, office parks) can install chargers, then you quickly realize that charging stations will only really be needed along highways.
  - jtaillon 6y ago
    What do electron fumes smell like? :)
xedeon 6y ago
What most don't realize here is that they are not counting the drive time to the actual gas station. Whereas most EV owners just plug in when they get home and wake up to a full charge.
- core-questions 6y ago
  > they are not counting the drive time to the actual gas station More often than not, this is on the way home / on the way to work, no? I don't just start the car and drive it down to a station to get gas and then come home (barring strange circumstances).
  - xedeon 6y ago
    That totals to how many minutes at a gas station a month? Charging at home is zero.
    - core-questions 6y ago
      For me? Like, ten, fifteen minutes? Not exactly a big deal
      - xedeon 6y ago
        So if we are looking at this objectively. Zero minutes is far better than 10-15 minutes. I've been an EV owner since 2016. I am yet to experience "waiting to charge" while commuting 20 miles to work and running errands. I park in our garage, plug in, and wake up to a full charge. That's with being a 2 EV household with only one Tesla wall connector that is set to 30A (can support up to 100A).
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    It's a good 15 minutes from my house to the nearest gas station. 30+ minutes of time wasted just to fill up the tank. Compare that to the 60 seconds I use to plug in my car when I park it at home, I start every day with a charged car.

The real issue is charge times. Gas fillups take a few minutes at most - meaning no long lines. Once charges are close to that speed I think EVs will really take off.

imglorp 6y ago

On the road for long trips, yes absolutely. But the EV usecase also includes low and medium speed charging at home overnight, and while at your destination (say a retailer) which you can't do with your ICE car. So overlapping but not identical comparison.

ntsplnkv2 6y ago
You're making many assumptions here. 1st, you're assuming people can charge at home - assuming they have a garage and access to power. This isn't true for a huge portion of the population. > and while at your destination (say a retailer) which you can't do with your ICE car. So overlapping but not identical comparison. This really isn't available yet either. Who's going to pay for this? Really?
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > 1st, you're assuming people can charge at home - assuming they have a garage and access to power. This isn't true for a huge portion of the population. So what, figuring out how people without a designated parking space can change their car is trivial compared to trying to undo global warming. Also Covid has shown us how much disruption we can actually tolerate, hint: a lot more than the powers that be want you to believe.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    This is a textbook strawman. > So what, figuring out how people without a designated parking space can change their car is trivial compared to trying to undo global warming. No it isn't. NYC has limited space. There simply isn't enough room for a charger for every car. That is a nontrivial problem with extreme cost. You can't just handwave it away.
    - smileysteve 6y ago
      NYC and San Francisco are about as strawman as it gets, because the cars AND trips per capita are some of the lowest in the U.S.
      - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
        Because of the infrastructure surrounding it - e.g. fleets of cars taxis, public transit, etc. In other words, better options than having an owning an EV, which, if you pay attention, is what we're talking about here.
        warkdarrior 6y ago
        > fleets of cars taxis, public transit Surely in those settings the best option is for the taxi companies and the public transit providers to shift to EVs.
        smileysteve 6y ago
        > In other words, better options than having an owning an EV is what we're talking about here. Nope. The topic is about mass adoption. Not mass adoption by people who take trains or taxi in a certain city. Even within this sub thread, it's comparing the "ease" of getting fuel and parking in nyc (neither of which are actually easy) to which charging is a mass hurdle. Are there people who don't have access to power and security at a parking spot who drive more than 100 miles a day (and drivers that use bottles and get blood clots instead of stopping for 1hr every 250 miles), sure, but that's not the mass, it's somewhere <5%. And roughly a smaller population to whom don't need a car on a regular basis at all.
        ascorbic 6y ago
        I don't think anyone is suggesting you buy an EV if you don't need a car at all. It's about replacing an ICE car. If you have one of those, you must be parking it somewhere already.
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      I spent 25 years living in San Francisco. What I know is I put about 6000 miles a year on my car. Of which about 4000 was around the city. Assuming a city dweller with a car charged it every 200 miles, that's be once every two and half weeks. That doesn't seem impossible, just merely inconvenient. On the same level of having to wash your clothes at a laundromat. It's thing, if you live in a real city, it's not the Suburbs.
- bogdanu 6y ago
  > This really isn't available yet either. Who's going to pay for this? Really? In Europe some retailers have this, sure, for 2 or 3 parking spots. If the demand is there, I'm pretty sure they'll expand it, even as a paid/loyality bonus. I don't expect them to offer superchaging but 50-60 km/h charge would be more than enough.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    2 or 3 parking spots. It's a token gesture, not meaningful infrastructure. Electrifying an entire parking lot is a lot more expensive than 2 or 3 spots.
    - theshrike79 6y ago
      You don't need to electrify the entire parking lot. Even if you do, not every parking spot needs to have a 350kW HPC charger. 11-22kW is more than enough. Add load balancing and maybe a battery in the future and you're good. The handful of spots is part greenwashing part gauging the demand. They do track the usage of those spots and increase the amount if they see that they're in use and driving business.
- natch 6y ago
  I don’t think they claimed that everyone has access at home. They said “the use case includes” which doesn’t exclude other possibilities. There are many great options for charging if you choose your car wisely. Our apartment building with six parking spaces has three Teslas and no charging on site. We do just fine. Charging takes about 15 seconds of my day on work days. And on the occasion when I need more, it’s quick and I can grab a few minutes (like, 10 or 15) of a youtube video or Netflix while charging. Or step into a store and do an errand while charging. In 10 minutes I can get about 100 miles of charge. I often go to our nearby Target (a store in the US) which has a supercharger right in the parking lot, and I don’t charge, even though I’m already there shopping right where the charger is. Why? No need. Already charged. It’s not that difficult. Notice I never said this will work for everyone. But it works for some, with no assumption about having chargers at home. >Who’s going to pay? Sometimes you pay per kilowatt. Other times you’re charged per minute, like 3 cents a minute or so which includes parking. Other places it’s free and advertising on nearby signs subsidies for it. Or employers pay for it as a work benefit. One network (Chargepoint) covers most of this stuff.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    This is what always happens when I bring up product problems about EVs. Everyone on HN who owns a luxury car Tesla in SV or some major metro with their six figure plus salary gets all bent out of shape, and ask "omg why can't everyone do this!" It's tone deaf and out of touch. EVs simply are not there yet. They're ludicrously expensive, inconvenient to refuel, don't offer utility like ICE trucks/SUVs, can't be charged effectively without huge infrastructure investment. I'm not saying we aren't making strides, I'm saying there are loads of improvements that need to come before EVs take over ICE sales to ultimately help us fight global problems. EVs have never been about rich people having a toy. We need cheap EVs now to help us fight global climate change and frankly they aren't there yet. You need to make massive assumptions for the vast majority of Americans to make EVs work compared to ICE vehicles.
    - jtaillon 6y ago
      The thing is, they're not "ludicrously expensive". Sure, Teslas and Porsches and Jaguars are, but you can also get a late-model used Nissan Leaf for under 10k, or a brand new Kia Niro for ~30k after tax credit. That's well within the bell curve of what people spend on ICE cars, used or not. A Leaf might not meet your needs, but it's not like there aren't other options out there. If you factor in longer-term costs like fuel cost, maintenance, and wear-and-tear, the equation tilts even further towards EV. Not to say they shouldn't be cheaper, but they'll definitely get there. We're pretty close to price-parity as is (just not tons of options).
- jmelloy 6y ago
  I've seen plenty of chargers at malls and Walgreens and other areas. Usually it's a ChargePoint or blink app, which connects through your phone. One of the local malls subsidizes the electricity and charging is free.
- bartvk 6y ago
  You're also making assumptions, though. Here in The Netherlands, most big cities really appreciate electric cars. Thus, in streets where the demand is big, they add additional charging stations. It's not like charging needs a garage and access to power. Sometimes, the local government is competent enough. So it really depends.
turtlebits 6y ago
You cannot get any meaningful charge at at retailer (assuming L2) unless you're there for over an hour, and that only nets you ~20-22 miles.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  > over an hour, and that only nets you ~20-22 miles. Most modern EVs can do 24-25 miles/hour on L2. How is that not meaningful? The average trip to the grocery store is 41 minutes [1] so that's 15 miles of charge which would negate most or all of the range lost traveling to the store. [1] https://www.creditdonkey.com/grocery-shopping-statistics.html https://www.creditdonkey.com/grocery-shopping-statistics.htm... Stop assuming that anyone plugging their EV into charge is on empty and NEEDS to charge. That's an ICE vehicle use pattern that doesn't apply, people wait until their empty when driving an ICE because they have to make a special trip. With an EV and charging everywhere, you can charge whenever you want.
  - turtlebits 6y ago
    You are assuming EV charging is everywhere, but right now infrastructure is extremely limited. I have yet to see a grocery store with a charging station in Seattle (QFC/Safeway/Whole Foods), and the one I have seen (at a Safeway far north), there were are only 2 spots and power was shared across ports. The reality for me is that L2 charging is currently useless as the places I go do not provide chargers.
    - cptskippy 6y ago
      You're moving the goal post. No the infrastructure isn't in place everywhere and your experience is evidence of that. But it works in other places, my experience is evidence of that. Everyone isn't going to have an EV overnight and there's time to build out reliable infrastructure everywhere.

technofiend 6y ago

Tangentially gas cars are convenient because you just don't have to think about the length of your next trip: there will be gas available wherever you go. Long trips with an EV require planning due to missing infrastructure, longer "fueling" times, and shorter ranges. But if we break out off the assumption that you can go anywhere any time in your electric car because there's another option available (rental? ride sharing? public transportation?) and EVs are at least for now meant for shorter trips then it becomes less of an issue. But you're right - the freedom to just hop in an EV and go isn't here yet. I look forward to when it is. Can't come soon enough for me.

ntsplnkv2 6y ago
If we break off the assumption of what most consumers want, sure. But then what would be the point?
- jeromegv 6y ago
  Over 80-90% of trips are very short in distance. Long distance trips are more of an anomaly for huge majority of people.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Long trips might be an anomaly, but they are a common one in that every person I know takes a couple every year. So a good answer needs to exist or the whole thing dies.
  - whatever1 6y ago
    Over 99% of the time I have 2 people in my car. Yet, I got a car with 4 seats.

tzs 6y ago

To put some numbers on this, you can measure charge rates/fueling rates as number of miles worth of charge/fuel provided per hour of charging/fueling. A Tesla V3 Supercharger can charge at a rate of about 1000 mph or 1600 kph. A 240 volt 48 amp home charger home charger can charge a Model 3 at a rate of 44 mph or 71 kph. A US gas pump can pump a maximum of 10 gallons per minute. If you refill at a station with such a pump, and your car gets 25 mpg (about average for the current US fleet), that's 15000 mph or 24000 kph. Perhaps we should be pushing for plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs) as a transition between ICE and EV. PHEVs have ranges between about 20 and 60 miles on electricity, which for many people is enough to cover all of their normal day to day driving except possibly their commute entirely on electric if they have a place for overnight charging at home, and when they need more range it has the ICE engine.

cptskippy 6y ago
The flaw in your reasoning, and most people arguing against BEVs is they envision the demand for charging stations is going to be in any way similar to the demand for gas stations. A regular 120v charger can put 60 miles on an EV overnight which is more than enough for the average commute. I did this for 2 years with a 50 mile round-trip commute. I started each day with 100% charge on my Nissan Leaf, arrived home each night with ~35 miles of range, and plugged it in. When we got our Model 3, we charged exclusively on 120v for about a year and only used a Supercharger on road trips out of state. We're a BEV only household and have used a charging station once in the last 6 months. I took the Leaf out to empty a storage unit 40 miles away and I only stopped for 10 minutes to put enough range so I wasn't coasting home on fumes. I realize that not everyone can charge at home, but a large portion of the population can and that will dramatically reduce the demand for charging stations. When you realize that anywhere you stop for long periods of time (e.g. restaurants, grocery stores, office parks) can install chargers, then you quickly realize that charging stations will only really be needed along highways.
- jtaillon 6y ago
  What do electron fumes smell like? :)

xedeon 6y ago

What most don't realize here is that they are not counting the drive time to the actual gas station. Whereas most EV owners just plug in when they get home and wake up to a full charge.

core-questions 6y ago
> they are not counting the drive time to the actual gas station More often than not, this is on the way home / on the way to work, no? I don't just start the car and drive it down to a station to get gas and then come home (barring strange circumstances).
- xedeon 6y ago
  That totals to how many minutes at a gas station a month? Charging at home is zero.
  - core-questions 6y ago
    For me? Like, ten, fifteen minutes? Not exactly a big deal
    - xedeon 6y ago
      So if we are looking at this objectively. Zero minutes is far better than 10-15 minutes. I've been an EV owner since 2016. I am yet to experience "waiting to charge" while commuting 20 miles to work and running errands. I park in our garage, plug in, and wake up to a full charge. That's with being a 2 EV household with only one Tesla wall connector that is set to 30A (can support up to 100A).
- theshrike79 6y ago
  It's a good 15 minutes from my house to the nearest gas station. 30+ minutes of time wasted just to fill up the tank. Compare that to the 60 seconds I use to plug in my car when I park it at home, I start every day with a charged car.