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>Not many people could get away with owning a plug-in electric as their only car. This is actually the myth that Top Gear seems interested in forever perpetuat

>Not many people could get away with owning a plug-in electric as their only car. This is actually the myth that Top Gear seems interested in forever perpetuating. Most people don't drive that far (http://news.discovery.com/autos/range-anxiety-nissan-leaf-110715.html http://news.discovery.com/autos/range-anxiety-nissan-leaf-11...) I think Chevy determined the average daily driver drives around 40 miles. The range of these new electric vehicles are actually fine for the majority of people's daily drivers and are only going to get better. For long drives they're not a good choice yet (since the infrastructure doesn't yet exist and without something like battery swap charging takes too long). >The point wasn't that the car can only go 60km versus 100km on a charge, or whatever the numbers. The point was that the range has a limit, that the limit is not that far... Was that really the point? You don't see them driving a gasoline powered car near empty and then acting confused when it can't reach it's destination while suggesting that gasoline powered cars are not the future. I think they went past hyperbolic into misleading.

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- fossuser 15y ago
  True, but small and dense also works in favor of an EV. The car tells you it's charge and uses GPS to determine if you can make it to your destination so you don't run out along the way. I suppose my point is running out of charge isn't something that would happen by accident and acting like it is can be misleading.
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    [I deleted my comment as a duplicate of Eli's before seeing you had replied. For the record, I said] Was that really the point? You don't see them driving a gasoline powered car near empty and then acting confused when it can't reach it's destination Because that's not such a problem - partly because you can walk to the nearest petrol station, and bring back a can of petrol and get going again, and partly because the UK is small and dense with petrol stations everywhere (try Google Maps UK and search for Petrol Station - 5 miles will probably get you to one, 20 miles almost certainly).
MikeCapone 15y ago
Off the top of my head, 80% of drivers drive less than 40 miles/day in the US, and that number is probably much lower in Europe and Asia. Since cars spend most of the day parked somehwere, you have lots of opportunities to plug an EV in, and so most times when you drive off you have a full battery.
- overgard 15y ago
  > Since cars spend most of the day parked somehwere, you have lots of opportunities to plug an EV in Maybe in theory, but how many outside wall outlets do you see, and who's paying for the electricity?
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    A huge percentage of normal-distance commuters are in homes with driveways. As for the rest, how hard is it to provide charging just like parking meters? http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/blogs/california-and-costco-to-spend-millions-on-new-electric-vehicle-char http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/blogs/californi...
    - hnal943 15y ago
      Except most people in America don't park at meters. Not at work, anyway. Most people park in parking lots, where there's no infrastructure for charging stations. How many businesses would want to distract themselves with maintaining and running a network of metered charging stations?
      - prodigal_erik 15y ago
        I sometimes park in the Yerba Buena garage, which has eight floors and 2,585 spaces. At 5.2 kW each, it should be quite an engineering challenge to add thirteen megawatts of daytime capacity in the fully-built heart of San Francisco (for scale, that's over 1% of the entire city's peak demand concentrated into one block). If power were cheaper, maybe they could smelt aluminum at night to offset the construction costs.
eli 15y ago
Average daily distance driven != the most you need to be able to drive. What happens when you need to drive further than that? Are you expecting people will rent a gas car once or twice a month? Like I said, it's not practical as your only car. > You don't see them driving a gasoline powered car near empty It's easy and quick to refill a gasoline car. At least around me, only the very smallest towns don't have a gas station. I can't remember the last time I was more than 20 miles from a gas station. That's the point. Some day, I suspect (and hope) they will all have recharging stations all over. But right now they don't.
- fossuser 15y ago
  You're right that for the times you need long distance you'd have to have some other vehicle. I don't know if a cheap second car is practical for this or renting something for a long trip. I also don't suspect that it would be needed once or twice a month. I would think it would be much less than that, but I don't have any real data to back up that suspicion. However rather than saying something like this, they exaggerate the situation and act as if you are unable to drive the EV anywhere without unwittingly running out of fuel. That in conjunction with the similar unwarranted bashing they did on Tesla makes people think they have something against EVs. There are legitimate criticisms they could make, it isn't necessary to fabricate stories or lie about what the cars can do.
  - eli 15y ago
    > ...act as if you are unable to drive the EV anywhere without unwittingly running out of fuel Not to be a jerk, but have you actually watched the episode or did you just read the article? This linked article makes it sounds like they were just driving along and poof the car died. But that's not at all how it looked on TV.
  - Kolya 15y ago
    Well, they were in a big town and were told by the county council that there were no charge points remotely nearby. Whatever you think of Top Gear, that fact does not reflect well on electric cars.
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fossuser 15y ago
True, but small and dense also works in favor of an EV. The car tells you it's charge and uses GPS to determine if you can make it to your destination so you don't run out along the way. I suppose my point is running out of charge isn't something that would happen by accident and acting like it is can be misleading.
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  [I deleted my comment as a duplicate of Eli's before seeing you had replied. For the record, I said] Was that really the point? You don't see them driving a gasoline powered car near empty and then acting confused when it can't reach it's destination Because that's not such a problem - partly because you can walk to the nearest petrol station, and bring back a can of petrol and get going again, and partly because the UK is small and dense with petrol stations everywhere (try Google Maps UK and search for Petrol Station - 5 miles will probably get you to one, 20 miles almost certainly).

MikeCapone 15y ago

Off the top of my head, 80% of drivers drive less than 40 miles/day in the US, and that number is probably much lower in Europe and Asia. Since cars spend most of the day parked somehwere, you have lots of opportunities to plug an EV in, and so most times when you drive off you have a full battery.

overgard 15y ago
> Since cars spend most of the day parked somehwere, you have lots of opportunities to plug an EV in Maybe in theory, but how many outside wall outlets do you see, and who's paying for the electricity?
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  A huge percentage of normal-distance commuters are in homes with driveways. As for the rest, how hard is it to provide charging just like parking meters? http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/blogs/california-and-costco-to-spend-millions-on-new-electric-vehicle-char http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/blogs/californi...
  - hnal943 15y ago
    Except most people in America don't park at meters. Not at work, anyway. Most people park in parking lots, where there's no infrastructure for charging stations. How many businesses would want to distract themselves with maintaining and running a network of metered charging stations?
    - prodigal_erik 15y ago
      I sometimes park in the Yerba Buena garage, which has eight floors and 2,585 spaces. At 5.2 kW each, it should be quite an engineering challenge to add thirteen megawatts of daytime capacity in the fully-built heart of San Francisco (for scale, that's over 1% of the entire city's peak demand concentrated into one block). If power were cheaper, maybe they could smelt aluminum at night to offset the construction costs.

eli 15y ago

Average daily distance driven != the most you need to be able to drive. What happens when you need to drive further than that? Are you expecting people will rent a gas car once or twice a month? Like I said, it's not practical as your only car. > You don't see them driving a gasoline powered car near empty It's easy and quick to refill a gasoline car. At least around me, only the very smallest towns don't have a gas station. I can't remember the last time I was more than 20 miles from a gas station. That's the point. Some day, I suspect (and hope) they will all have recharging stations all over. But right now they don't.

fossuser 15y ago
You're right that for the times you need long distance you'd have to have some other vehicle. I don't know if a cheap second car is practical for this or renting something for a long trip. I also don't suspect that it would be needed once or twice a month. I would think it would be much less than that, but I don't have any real data to back up that suspicion. However rather than saying something like this, they exaggerate the situation and act as if you are unable to drive the EV anywhere without unwittingly running out of fuel. That in conjunction with the similar unwarranted bashing they did on Tesla makes people think they have something against EVs. There are legitimate criticisms they could make, it isn't necessary to fabricate stories or lie about what the cars can do.
- eli 15y ago
  > ...act as if you are unable to drive the EV anywhere without unwittingly running out of fuel Not to be a jerk, but have you actually watched the episode or did you just read the article? This linked article makes it sounds like they were just driving along and poof the car died. But that's not at all how it looked on TV.
- Kolya 15y ago
  Well, they were in a big town and were told by the county council that there were no charge points remotely nearby. Whatever you think of Top Gear, that fact does not reflect well on electric cars.
15y ago