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People in these EV conversations tend to underappreciate the magic of simply being able to pull into a gas station in “AnywhereTown” with an ICE vehicle, top up

People in these EV conversations tend to underappreciate the magic of simply being able to pull into a gas station in “AnywhereTown” with an ICE vehicle, top up the tank in less than 15 minutes, and then drive another 500 miles or whatever. EVs don’t do that. In an EV, you drive for a few hundred miles at best, then you spend 30-60 minutes at a supercharger if you’re lucky; or at least several hours at a “normal speed” charger if you’re not. At which point, you can proceed cautiously forward after much delay, always checking your EV’s estimated range remaining — and mapping out when and where the next charger session will have to be. Because of the above dynamic, EV range figures can be a bit misleading. “Effective daily maximum range” is a better metric, i.e. how far one tank of fuel gets you multiplied by how many tanks of fuel you can go through in a day of driving. EVs need to have a far larger range than their ICE counterparts for true equivalence here, to offset the drastically higher downtime of seeking out chargers and using them extensively. In addition, independent charger networks are really hit or miss: those handy EV charging station locator apps often times display out-of-date information; the chargers are difficult to find; and the particular charger you end up with exhibits mechanical and/or payment issues not infrequently. Tesla’s supercharger stations are also a magnet for criminals — got the feeling I was being cased once at the Austin supercharger. (“The future is already here—It's just not very evenly distributed”) For people who have access to a regular, dedicated charging outlet at home, or at work, an EV could make perfectly good sense. Still love EVs, and I agree they’re the future — but they’re the future moreso than the present for many, oweing mainly to these infrastructural issues.

light_hue_1 5y ago
> People in these EV conversations tend to underappreciate the magic of simply being able to pull into a gas station in “AnywhereTown” with an ICE vehicle, top up the tank in less than 15 minutes, and then drive another 500 miles or whatever. You are driving EV cars wrong. > EVs don’t do that. In an EV, you drive for a few hundred miles at best, then you spend 30-60 minutes at a supercharger if you’re lucky If you do this, you will have a terrible experience! EVs charge ultra fast when the battery is low. You are supposed to drive them down to say 10%, then charge up to around 50% repeatedly. This takes.. 10 minutes. You drive for 200 miles or so, stop for 10 minutes, repeat. It's pretty reasonable to take a 10 minute break every 2.5 hours. On an 8 hour (500 mile) drive, you will charge for 30 minutes or so. You should start using abetterrouteplanner.com I bet, that when you go on a 500 mile drive, you are stopping that often to use the facilities and get some food already. Nothing changes. > Because of the above dynamic, EV range figures can be a bit misleading The corrected dynamic shows that EV range figures are spot on and you lose no time on long drives. > Tesla’s supercharger stations are also a magnet for criminals — got the feeling I was being cased once at the Austin supercharger. (“The future is already here—It's just not very evenly distributed”) I have exactly the opposite experience. In my city Tesla chargers are all in good malls, with plenty of people around, and lots of things to do. I've been to far shadier gas stations. > For people who have access to a regular, dedicated charging outlet at home, or at work, an EV could make perfectly good sense For sure. A charger at home is necessary. We had a few months between buying the car and getting the charger installed and the change was just astounding.
- RangeAnxiety 5y ago
  This seems overly optimistic. I don't even run my ICE tank to 10% because I am concerned that I will run out of gas before finding the next place to fill up. With my EV I am even more concerned, because of all the reasons stated in this thread.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  When I drive long distance like that, I stop only for gas, which is almost always available immediately at the end of the highway exit ramp. I use the bathroom and if necessary get food at the same time. Pulling off the road every 2.5 hours and driving to the nearest mall or wherever the charging point is, and then back to the highway, is a complete deal breaker for those types of drives.
  - framecowbird 5y ago
    I think this is predicated on having a good enough charging network close to the motorway. It's entirely personal, but I don't like to drive for more than 2.5 hours at a stretch, I find my eyes start to lose a bit of focus and it feels dangerous to me.
  - magicalhippo 5y ago
    > nearest mall or wherever the charging point is Like the gas station? Here in Norway most gas station chains are building out chargers, and a lot of them have charging stations right next to them already. After all, gas stations still want to rake in on those snacks and drinks...
  - culopatin 5y ago
    Well of course. You’re comparing 120 years of developing a network of ICE cars with what, 10? of EVS? If gas stations got on the “let’s also sell electrical” movement you’d also have much more availability of chargers at any ramp and you could do 10 min partial charges with less anxiety because you’d know that in any other exit you’ll be able to charge. Pointing the obvious is just silly.
    - 5y ago
cbmuser 5y ago
> People in these EV conversations tend to underappreciate the magic of simply being able to pull into a gas station in “AnywhereTown” with an ICE vehicle, top up the tank in less than 15 minutes, and then drive another 500 miles or whatever. That’s because the energy is transferred into the ICE car’s tank without changing its form and there is therefore no real theoretical limit on the refueling speed. For EVs, energy is changing its form from electric to chemical energy and due to the heat losses during that transformation process, you cannot arbitrarily increase the refueling speed. This conversion of energy during refueling is why I personally think that battery-electric cars are not the best solution for clean cars.
- EricE 5y ago
  >This conversion of energy during refueling is why I personally think that battery-electric cars are not the best solution for clean cars. Yup - I used to think hydrogen fuel cells were ridiculously over complicated until you run into this aspect of battery driven electric vehicles. Now the allure of hydrogen makes sense - quick fill ups!
cptskippy 5y ago
> then drive another 500 miles When did cars start getting 500 miles to tank? I owned various incarnations of the Honda Accord for almost 30 years and the best I ever got was just over 300 miles.
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  I once drove from Berkely to San Diego (about 500 miles) on a single tank in a 2003 Saab 9-3. I have no idea how common ICE cars are that are capable of this.
  - cptskippy 5y ago
    To do that you would have had to either use the entire tank of gas at the highway MPG rating, or exceed it. That seems perfectly doable and that's not an everyday scenario. You can do the same in an EV, there have been plenty of times where I left the house and returned with more charge due to using hills and regenerative braking. That being said, it's unusual and you wouldn't expect go get highway MPG ratings under regular use unless your regular use is strictly highway driving under optimal conditions.
    - CogitoCogito 5y ago
      It wasn't a normal drive. Not only did I not fill up, but I didn't even leave the car. (Once I'd gone about 2/3s of the trip and realized it was maybe possible, it became sort of a challenge.) But yeah I've made that drive at least a half dozen times, but that was the only time I didn't fill up the tank. In any case, my only point was that there are cars out there that can drive 500 miles on a single tank. The 9-3 I did it with is getting close to 20 years old. I'm sure there are older cars capable of the same.
mcot2 5y ago
At least for Tesla, around the eastern seaboard, this is not the case. The rest of the EV world will eventually converge to this state as the infrastructure is built out. The leading edge of EV’s (Model S Long Range) now have over 400 miles (300+ to 80%). I-95 for example in NJ and CT have 250kW peak Superchargers spaced every 20-30 miles or so. Its not quite the same as ICE still but it is getting very close. I can imagine the technology will be there in 2-3 years and it doesn’t require any sort of solid state battery technology.
- LTL_FTC 5y ago
  I’m still hoping for inductive charging roads. The modern day electric race track toys, if you will.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Agree, it's all great if you are driving around a major built up metro area. It doesn't work if you're driving to North Dakota.
yuppie_scum 5y ago
Well, rent an ICE for your grand romantic road trip then.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  I envy those people that go on 500 mile road trips all the time and therefore can't live without a car with ICE. Personally I think I could live with not having that kind of range at all times if there were reasonable car sharing or rental options around.
  - atweiden 5y ago
    I’m personally a lot happier not living in HCOL, noisy, polluted and just downright unsafe major metropolitan areas these days. The tradeoff is this precludes practicable EV ownership IME, at least at the current time. Even still, I’ve loved driving every EV I’ve had the opportunity to, and would be quite ecstatic were modern ICE vehicles to be entirely replaced by full EVs. (Classic and 90s era Japanese sports cars are another story.)
    - boardwaalk 5y ago
      Where exactly do you live that you need to go more than 100, 150 miles one way? Even in the moderate back ass of nowhere, you're probably not more than 20 or 30 miles to necessities (groceries, etc), right? Either way, this situation (20-30 miles from a grocery store) certainly wouldn't be a considered "HCOL, ..., major metro area," right? I just can't compute this.
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        Living in an area like that, and having to rent a car for longer trips in a PITA. Car rental is not exactly easy in areas like that. If there is a rental agency nearby, it probably is open 9-5. So you have to pick up the car a day in advance, and leave your EV there if they let you, or have another person along to drive it back. It's just not practical.
bit_logic 5y ago
This is why I think the SUV PHEV is the perfect vehicle for the US market. And the market has shown this, demand for the RAV4 Prime is so great they can't make them fast enough and it's going for over MSRP. The car manufacturers are slowly noticing this (Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Ford, Audi, BMW have PHEV SUVs) but they need to push PHEV across all the models.
kumarvvr 5y ago
I am an Indian. I am curious, as to the amount of times one has the requirement to fill a tank of gas and drive 500 miles further. EVs should target the regular commuter market. I was really surprised that Tesla invested in the supercharger network. I get the idea, but in the US, do people really go on such long drives regularly?
- atweiden 5y ago
  The 500 mile figure is roughly the range of a modern Toyota Camry. It’s just a useful baseline. But as it happens, we’d drive 500 miles from Atlanta to St Louis every winter to visit our grandparents when we were growing up. I’m sure lots of people have relatives or friends they could visit who live about that far away. Alternatively, Birmingham to Orange Beach is a bit shy of 300 miles one way. Atlanta to various popular beach vacation spots in Florida and South Carolina is roughly comparable. Beach vacation territory, IOW, is commonly several hundred miles one way.
- zucker42 5y ago
  Yes, people go on 300+ mile drives often enough that the ability to take long drives is important. While long trips are surely not very common as a percentage of trips, taking a "road trip" (a vacation by long car drive) might be done once or more per year in some families. For example, one might drive from San Francisco to LA, or Atlanta to Daytona Beach. It's not entirely uncommon to drive all the way cross-country either. I believe, though, it's only a matter of time before charging stations reach parity with gas stations. It's already possible to take a road trip by major highways with a Tesla.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Lots of people drive from Canada to Florida in the spring. Go to Clearwater Beach in March and count the number of Ontario license plates you see.
  - kd5bjo 5y ago
    > I believe, though, it's only a matter of time before charging stations reach parity with gas stations. It's already possible to take a road trip by major highways with a Tesla. For a full transition to EVs, the charger network is going to need enough capacity to handle large emergencies like hurricane evacuations. A typical gas station with 4-8 pumps can keep a lot of cars moving in that sort of situation, and it doesn’t feel like electric charging stations will be able to handle that load anytime soon.

light_hue_1 5y ago

> People in these EV conversations tend to underappreciate the magic of simply being able to pull into a gas station in “AnywhereTown” with an ICE vehicle, top up the tank in less than 15 minutes, and then drive another 500 miles or whatever. You are driving EV cars wrong. > EVs don’t do that. In an EV, you drive for a few hundred miles at best, then you spend 30-60 minutes at a supercharger if you’re lucky If you do this, you will have a terrible experience! EVs charge ultra fast when the battery is low. You are supposed to drive them down to say 10%, then charge up to around 50% repeatedly. This takes.. 10 minutes. You drive for 200 miles or so, stop for 10 minutes, repeat. It's pretty reasonable to take a 10 minute break every 2.5 hours. On an 8 hour (500 mile) drive, you will charge for 30 minutes or so. You should start using abetterrouteplanner.com I bet, that when you go on a 500 mile drive, you are stopping that often to use the facilities and get some food already. Nothing changes. > Because of the above dynamic, EV range figures can be a bit misleading The corrected dynamic shows that EV range figures are spot on and you lose no time on long drives. > Tesla’s supercharger stations are also a magnet for criminals — got the feeling I was being cased once at the Austin supercharger. (“The future is already here—It's just not very evenly distributed”) I have exactly the opposite experience. In my city Tesla chargers are all in good malls, with plenty of people around, and lots of things to do. I've been to far shadier gas stations. > For people who have access to a regular, dedicated charging outlet at home, or at work, an EV could make perfectly good sense For sure. A charger at home is necessary. We had a few months between buying the car and getting the charger installed and the change was just astounding.

RangeAnxiety 5y ago
This seems overly optimistic. I don't even run my ICE tank to 10% because I am concerned that I will run out of gas before finding the next place to fill up. With my EV I am even more concerned, because of all the reasons stated in this thread.
throwawayboise 5y ago
When I drive long distance like that, I stop only for gas, which is almost always available immediately at the end of the highway exit ramp. I use the bathroom and if necessary get food at the same time. Pulling off the road every 2.5 hours and driving to the nearest mall or wherever the charging point is, and then back to the highway, is a complete deal breaker for those types of drives.
- framecowbird 5y ago
  I think this is predicated on having a good enough charging network close to the motorway. It's entirely personal, but I don't like to drive for more than 2.5 hours at a stretch, I find my eyes start to lose a bit of focus and it feels dangerous to me.
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  > nearest mall or wherever the charging point is Like the gas station? Here in Norway most gas station chains are building out chargers, and a lot of them have charging stations right next to them already. After all, gas stations still want to rake in on those snacks and drinks...
- culopatin 5y ago
  Well of course. You’re comparing 120 years of developing a network of ICE cars with what, 10? of EVS? If gas stations got on the “let’s also sell electrical” movement you’d also have much more availability of chargers at any ramp and you could do 10 min partial charges with less anxiety because you’d know that in any other exit you’ll be able to charge. Pointing the obvious is just silly.
  - 5y ago

cbmuser 5y ago

> People in these EV conversations tend to underappreciate the magic of simply being able to pull into a gas station in “AnywhereTown” with an ICE vehicle, top up the tank in less than 15 minutes, and then drive another 500 miles or whatever. That’s because the energy is transferred into the ICE car’s tank without changing its form and there is therefore no real theoretical limit on the refueling speed. For EVs, energy is changing its form from electric to chemical energy and due to the heat losses during that transformation process, you cannot arbitrarily increase the refueling speed. This conversion of energy during refueling is why I personally think that battery-electric cars are not the best solution for clean cars.

EricE 5y ago
>This conversion of energy during refueling is why I personally think that battery-electric cars are not the best solution for clean cars. Yup - I used to think hydrogen fuel cells were ridiculously over complicated until you run into this aspect of battery driven electric vehicles. Now the allure of hydrogen makes sense - quick fill ups!

cptskippy 5y ago

> then drive another 500 miles When did cars start getting 500 miles to tank? I owned various incarnations of the Honda Accord for almost 30 years and the best I ever got was just over 300 miles.

CogitoCogito 5y ago
I once drove from Berkely to San Diego (about 500 miles) on a single tank in a 2003 Saab 9-3. I have no idea how common ICE cars are that are capable of this.
- cptskippy 5y ago
  To do that you would have had to either use the entire tank of gas at the highway MPG rating, or exceed it. That seems perfectly doable and that's not an everyday scenario. You can do the same in an EV, there have been plenty of times where I left the house and returned with more charge due to using hills and regenerative braking. That being said, it's unusual and you wouldn't expect go get highway MPG ratings under regular use unless your regular use is strictly highway driving under optimal conditions.
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    It wasn't a normal drive. Not only did I not fill up, but I didn't even leave the car. (Once I'd gone about 2/3s of the trip and realized it was maybe possible, it became sort of a challenge.) But yeah I've made that drive at least a half dozen times, but that was the only time I didn't fill up the tank. In any case, my only point was that there are cars out there that can drive 500 miles on a single tank. The 9-3 I did it with is getting close to 20 years old. I'm sure there are older cars capable of the same.

mcot2 5y ago

At least for Tesla, around the eastern seaboard, this is not the case. The rest of the EV world will eventually converge to this state as the infrastructure is built out. The leading edge of EV’s (Model S Long Range) now have over 400 miles (300+ to 80%). I-95 for example in NJ and CT have 250kW peak Superchargers spaced every 20-30 miles or so. Its not quite the same as ICE still but it is getting very close. I can imagine the technology will be there in 2-3 years and it doesn’t require any sort of solid state battery technology.

LTL_FTC 5y ago
I’m still hoping for inductive charging roads. The modern day electric race track toys, if you will.
throwawayboise 5y ago
Agree, it's all great if you are driving around a major built up metro area. It doesn't work if you're driving to North Dakota.

yuppie_scum 5y ago

Well, rent an ICE for your grand romantic road trip then.

barbazoo 5y ago
I envy those people that go on 500 mile road trips all the time and therefore can't live without a car with ICE. Personally I think I could live with not having that kind of range at all times if there were reasonable car sharing or rental options around.
- atweiden 5y ago
  I’m personally a lot happier not living in HCOL, noisy, polluted and just downright unsafe major metropolitan areas these days. The tradeoff is this precludes practicable EV ownership IME, at least at the current time. Even still, I’ve loved driving every EV I’ve had the opportunity to, and would be quite ecstatic were modern ICE vehicles to be entirely replaced by full EVs. (Classic and 90s era Japanese sports cars are another story.)
  - boardwaalk 5y ago
    Where exactly do you live that you need to go more than 100, 150 miles one way? Even in the moderate back ass of nowhere, you're probably not more than 20 or 30 miles to necessities (groceries, etc), right? Either way, this situation (20-30 miles from a grocery store) certainly wouldn't be a considered "HCOL, ..., major metro area," right? I just can't compute this.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      Living in an area like that, and having to rent a car for longer trips in a PITA. Car rental is not exactly easy in areas like that. If there is a rental agency nearby, it probably is open 9-5. So you have to pick up the car a day in advance, and leave your EV there if they let you, or have another person along to drive it back. It's just not practical.

bit_logic 5y ago

This is why I think the SUV PHEV is the perfect vehicle for the US market. And the market has shown this, demand for the RAV4 Prime is so great they can't make them fast enough and it's going for over MSRP. The car manufacturers are slowly noticing this (Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Ford, Audi, BMW have PHEV SUVs) but they need to push PHEV across all the models.

kumarvvr 5y ago

I am an Indian. I am curious, as to the amount of times one has the requirement to fill a tank of gas and drive 500 miles further. EVs should target the regular commuter market. I was really surprised that Tesla invested in the supercharger network. I get the idea, but in the US, do people really go on such long drives regularly?

atweiden 5y ago
The 500 mile figure is roughly the range of a modern Toyota Camry. It’s just a useful baseline. But as it happens, we’d drive 500 miles from Atlanta to St Louis every winter to visit our grandparents when we were growing up. I’m sure lots of people have relatives or friends they could visit who live about that far away. Alternatively, Birmingham to Orange Beach is a bit shy of 300 miles one way. Atlanta to various popular beach vacation spots in Florida and South Carolina is roughly comparable. Beach vacation territory, IOW, is commonly several hundred miles one way.
zucker42 5y ago
Yes, people go on 300+ mile drives often enough that the ability to take long drives is important. While long trips are surely not very common as a percentage of trips, taking a "road trip" (a vacation by long car drive) might be done once or more per year in some families. For example, one might drive from San Francisco to LA, or Atlanta to Daytona Beach. It's not entirely uncommon to drive all the way cross-country either. I believe, though, it's only a matter of time before charging stations reach parity with gas stations. It's already possible to take a road trip by major highways with a Tesla.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Lots of people drive from Canada to Florida in the spring. Go to Clearwater Beach in March and count the number of Ontario license plates you see.
- kd5bjo 5y ago
  > I believe, though, it's only a matter of time before charging stations reach parity with gas stations. It's already possible to take a road trip by major highways with a Tesla. For a full transition to EVs, the charger network is going to need enough capacity to handle large emergencies like hurricane evacuations. A typical gas station with 4-8 pumps can keep a lot of cars moving in that sort of situation, and it doesn’t feel like electric charging stations will be able to handle that load anytime soon.