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> (you'll spend less time overall than you spend at gas stations) Curious how you are calculating this. I usually spend about 60-120 seconds refilling my tank
by rsj_hn 6y ago
> (you'll spend less time overall than you spend at gas stations)
Curious how you are calculating this. I usually spend about 60-120 seconds refilling my tank once every 300 miles. (15 gallon tank, about 30 mpg).
Because gas stations are everywhere, I never have to plan a specific route based on availability of gas stations, or use an app to find where the stations are, or even think about how much gas I have, as I know there is a station on the way to wherever I am going, and all I need to do is pull over. I even have the luxury of refusing to stop at gas stations on the left side of the road because there will be another station a block down on the right side.
But with electric you have to go out of your way to find a charging station and it takes longer than 100 seconds to fully charge your car. So how can it be less time overall?
- clouddrover 6y ago> So how can it be less time overall? If you can charge at home overnight (or at work during the day) then you won't need to go anywhere else.
- rsj_hn 6y agoIf a car never breaks down, then you don't need to waste time at a mechanic, either.
- samcheng 6y agoThis metaphor doesn’t make sense to me. As a matter of course, a gasoline car needs gasoline; unless you live on a farm with delivered fuel, that means going to the gas station for it. An electric car needs only electricity to operate, which is already distributed via wires to everyone’s home. Both cars need tires; electric cars also need significantly less scheduled maintenance. No oil changes, no timing belt, etc.
- rsj_hn 6y agoThe point being that estimating the expectation of something by excluding an important part of the event space yields a false estimate. No one believes that everyone always charges their cars at home and that charging stations are not needed, otherwise there would be no demand to build them. But when called out on the inconvenience of these stations there is a retreat to "oh, I only charge at home" and so that is the only case in which to take charge convenience into account.
- Robotbeat 6y agoIt’s not a retreat. I drive a plug-in electric hybrid car, and I almost never visit a gas or charging station. Maybe every 6 months (I only use a little gas if I exceed the 35 mile electric range... I never drive 400 miles a day except on long road trips). I just charge at home. It’s way more convenient than gas stations. People who have never owned electric cars just don’t grok this. Yes, some people live in apartments which often have no outlets for charging your car (altho they definitely do some places), but this is a minority of people in the US and so it’s fair to say that overall you likely will spend a lot less time charging than a typical gas car owner spends at gas stations. It’s a perfectly defensible statement.
- allannienhuis 6y agoI've had my model y for six months now, and I have not needed to charge it away from home once yet. Yes, it's the pandemic so I'm not making long trips, but it's met my regular trip needs without compromise.
- samcheng 6y agoWith electric you plug the car in overnight while it is parked. It is full every morning, and you never need to go out of your way to charge it unless you are on an intercity trip. It really is more convenient than gasoline!
- rsj_hn 6y agoI don't think most people would consider only charging at home an advantage or "convenience". If you even need to go to a charging station once and spend a half hour to an hour there, that becomes very inconvenient, even if you only need to do that once a month. Most people would like to have a charging station always nearby so that it becomes stateless for them, so that they don't need to think about how much they drove that day, and they want the charging to happen within a minute or so to view it as equally convenient as gas. PEV have many advantages, but let's be realistic -- the convenience of charging is a disadvantage.
- bobthepanda 6y agoAlso this assumes you have a driveway that has a charge point hooked up. This does nothing for, say, most apartment buildings which don’t have charge points, or people who park on the street.
- samcheng 6y agoThat’s true; we’re going to want a substantial improvement in charging infrastructure over the next decade.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sokoloff 6y agoI’d time your next fuel stop. Start a phone video recording and measure the time from making the right turn into the station and stop it once you’re back on the road. It’s never going to be 2 minutes and will often be more like 10 minutes. In contrast, if you have a plug at your house, you spend well under a minute to plug and unplug.