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The problem with batteries is charging time. My sedan goes roughly 400 miles on a tank of gas, and filling up to go further takes in the region of 5 minutes. Wi

The problem with batteries is charging time. My sedan goes roughly 400 miles on a tank of gas, and filling up to go further takes in the region of 5 minutes. With an electric car, you're looking at maybe an hour to fill it up to that range, even with a supercharger. (Note that electric cars don't even go 400 miles on a full charge, so this will take multiple charges to do.) If you need to go further than a single charge, well, hydrogen may provide faster charging times than electric will.

vel0city 4y ago
I spend a ton more time waiting to "recharge" my ICE than I do my EV, its not even close. If you're going to go by time waiting, my EV wins out by hours a year. Compounding that a several years and its essentially a day or two of my life saved by not having to pump gas every week and a half.
- dham 4y ago
  That's just not true. That's just something EV owners say to themselves to justify purchase. I've seen a bunch of these longer drives on Youtube. They try to say, hey you can stop here and get lunch or wait 30 minutes and the kids can play a game. I watched a trip one person did and every time they stopped they went shopping in the Walmart (this was non Tesla chargers) or ate. That adds up. Plus you might not always be in the best part of town late at night. At the end of the day according to the Tesla trip planner it adds quite a bit of time on to basic trips. The other thing is these chargers might not be covered so you're out in the rain, or snow and the lots haven't been cleared. That just doesn't seem fun with 2 kids. You also have to think about the AC / heat, how you're driving, battery degrading after first year or so. It's an anxiety I don't need. Plus in my case I would have to get my Tesla towed 3 hours away with major issues. I now minor ones the traveling repair can deal with. A neighbor had a collision and didn't have his Tesla for 4 months. The facilities are so backed up. No one knows how to work on them except Tesla. Electric is the future, but it's like 4 to 5 years out. Hybrid is good enough right now. With ICE you literally pull of an exit, take 5 minutes to fill up and you're back.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    > That's just not true. Its objectively the reality I live with. I definitely spend more time pumping gas in my Santa Fe than I do my Mach E. A bit over 5 minutes every week and a half versus 0 minutes so far in my Mach E. 34.666 * 5 = 173.33 minutes of waiting, as a lower bound, in the ICE means just shy of 3 hours a year I spend waiting on my gas car. Meanwhile, the amount of time I spent waiting on my Mach E to charge last year was 0 minutes. This is objective and factual. > You also have to think about the AC / heat, how you're driving, battery degrading after first year or so. If you want to, you can stress about these things. I don't, I practically always have way more range than I need every time I leave my garage. Meanwhile I do regularly get frustrated about getting a low tank of gas and think "ugh, gotta stop by the gas station sometime on this trip, even though I'm in a hurry and would really rather just get to where I'm going". You could also stress about things like AC or how you're driving in your ICE, these things impact your gas mileage and will impact what you spend. Which your per-mile energy cost is waaaaaaaaay higher in an ICE than an EV, so you'd think you want to conserve even more. Having a lead foot in an EV is a lot cheaper than in an ICE. > No one knows how to work on them except Tesla No one knows how to work on my Mach E than Tesla? Only Tesla can repair a Ioniq 5? That sure seeems strange to me!
  - andjd 4y ago
    Alternate solution: If you don't feel that that EVs are suitable yet for you to make road trips, you can still buy an EV for your daily needs and rent a gas-powered car for the occasional times you need to take longer trips.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    > I've seen a bunch of these longer drives on Youtube. Cool, now consider that lots of people make very few longer drives. They're not deluding themselves just because they use a car differently than you do!
  - tomtheelder 4y ago
    If you regularly drive hundreds of miles at a time, then your position is fair enough. Very few people do that. I and many people I know own an EV, and it is literally zero stress. In fact it's less stress than with my old ICE car, because I effectively always have a full tank in the morning. I don't even have level 2 home charging, but it's still a complete non issue. I've done longer drives too, and I would describe those as "slightly inconvenient." In all honesty I sort of appreciate the breaks, but I know it annoys my girlfriend who likes to keep rolling. It definitely adds time, that's a fact! But realistically owning an EV today is incredibly straightforward and stress free. I an everyone I know who has one would agree.
- davoneus 4y ago
  That's YOUR experience, but that certainly doesn't translate over to an appt dweller who doesn't have their own garage to charge their BEV with. You better believe they WILL sit for a dang good bit of time waiting for their vehicle to charge.
  - andjd 4y ago
    That's a fair critique. It's certainly easiest for homeowners with a grange to do EVs. Eventually, market forces will make apartment owners who offer parking to also offer EV charging, but I think it would be reasonable for government regulations to require them to install chargers for renters who request it. Policy solutions are harder for neighborhoods where residents rely on on-street parking, as the municipality would probably have to install and maintain a lot of level 2 chargers, but this would still be worth doing. In the mean time, if you're in this situation, I personally wouldn't fault you for getting a gas-powered car. EVs are still more constrained by supply than demand.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    The majority of Americans live in single family homes. The majority of Americans can charge an EV at home.
    - p_l 4y ago
      Americans with single family homes aren't the only market in USA. USA is not the only country in the world. Other countries can have wildly different situation and setup, and in fact building home charging stations might be problematic for significant portion of future buyers that Toyota might want to grab. P.S. A bit under 30% of worldwide Toyota production goes into USA - that still leaves a huge chunk of sales that might have wildly different needs to cater to.
      - vel0city 4y ago
        A slight majority of Europeans live in single family homes as well. It's not like single family homes are something that only exist in America and the entire rest of the car buying world is "wildly different". I realize not every car buyer can have their own charger at home, that's obvious. But let's not act like it's a rare thing for people to have the ability to charge at home. Over half of all households in Europe and US can probably add home charging for little cost. That's a ton of EVs to sell, an absolutely massive market able to be addressed now.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  When trips are drive-to-work-each-day, and you can tolerate charging at your house overnight, the wait times for an EV charge are not an issue. When your trips are drive-across-the-country, so you need to recharge multiple times en route, that's when it starts becoming substantially harder to find something else to overlap with your need to recharge. Even just doing Midwest-to-Mid-Atlantic drives, I'd complete my lunch pitstop (including eating, filling gas tank, and emptying bladder) before an EV charge could fill up again, even discounting the fact that the lesser range of an EV means I'd need to squeeze in another charging pitstop uncomfortably early to overlap with dinner.
  - smileysteve 4y ago
    I think you cover it, but from elapsed time, the average consumer use is mostly commute or errand based with the occasional (or weekend trip). What this means is that if you fill gas 1-2x a week to handle the average 20 mile commute, you've saved 10 minutes because the refill of the electric is at home, with little effort. Now you bank that 10 minutes every time you take any one way <~200 mile trip with electricity at the ends. If you're doing regular multi region drives you are not average, you're likely in the top 1% of consumer long range trips. To add, the longer and "more often" stops are healthier for you and your passengers; very few cars have a less than 200 mile range now, and if you're sitting for that period of time, moving (or at least not sitting) is a good idea to prevent deep vein thrombosis, the longer the better.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    > When your trips are drive-across-the-country Good thing I do well less than 1 of those on average every year, along with practically every other passenger car in America. Is driving from San Diego to New York City really a common thing people do here? Is that what the average driver does on a weekly basis? Is that really what we should be targeting our cars to do?
    - zardo 4y ago
      Coast to coast is very uncommon. San Diego to Seattle, or New York to Miami would be much more typical of a once per year road trip.
- michaelgrosner2 4y ago
  Seconded. I live in NJ, too, so any trip to a gas station usually involves waiting quite a bit for a human attendant to pump my gas. At least I don't need an attendant to charge my EV! I don't need to swipe a credit card, I don't need to wait for a pump spot to open, and I don't need to listen to ads playing on a tiny speaker. The EV charging routine is so much better in every way than ICE. Another consideration is that I always have a full 'tank' in my EV, almost every single time I drive. There is no consideration I'll run out of juice during my commute or errands.
andjd 4y ago
This is quickly becoming outdated. Fast-charging times of about 15 minutes are possible in the US with currently existing infrastructure and vehicles, and this speed is likely to keep improving as the tech gets better. And for the typical daily driving needs of most people, plugging in to charge overnight is sufficient, so you only need to worry about charging times in rare occurrences, such as when taking a road trip.
- protomyth 4y ago
  Which car can be fully charged in 15 minutes? I've looked and cannot find one except some supercars that are way out of reach.
  - natch 4y ago
    “fully” charged is a red herring, and foolish in practice.
    - protomyth 4y ago
      Ok, which car can charge to 300+ miles in 15 minutes? I can fill my car in 15 minutes and get another 300+ miles.
      - tomtheelder 4y ago
        Obviously you can't do that, and no one is arguing that a "full tank" type EV fillup is as fast as it is with an ICE vehicle. But as an EV owner, long (like multi hundred mile) trips are the only time I would ever do that. Otherwise it's just frequent top ups while I'm at home or doing errands or whatever. So from my perspective the time to charge to full is kind of a red herring unless you are someone who regularly does like 300+ mile trips.
        protomyth 4y ago
        Well, I am someone who regularly does 300+ mile trips and I currently have a hybrid but they are not great on highways (for obvious reasons). Time of charge is a big component of my next buying decision.
pettusftw 4y ago
Proponents of electric cars love to talk about daily commutes and charging at home over night and how they never have to "fill up", while either never leaving a 200 mile bubble around their home, or pretending they're okay with paying an extra $1k+ to rent an ICE car for road trips. As someone who does not have a commute and mainly owns a car for the 600-2000 mile road trips I take _at least_ every ~6 weeks. I'd much prefer a PHEV, which incidentally can drastically increase range while also handling the ~30 mile average daily commute electric-only quite easily. The absolutism is tiring.

vel0city 4y ago

I spend a ton more time waiting to "recharge" my ICE than I do my EV, its not even close. If you're going to go by time waiting, my EV wins out by hours a year. Compounding that a several years and its essentially a day or two of my life saved by not having to pump gas every week and a half.

dham 4y ago
That's just not true. That's just something EV owners say to themselves to justify purchase. I've seen a bunch of these longer drives on Youtube. They try to say, hey you can stop here and get lunch or wait 30 minutes and the kids can play a game. I watched a trip one person did and every time they stopped they went shopping in the Walmart (this was non Tesla chargers) or ate. That adds up. Plus you might not always be in the best part of town late at night. At the end of the day according to the Tesla trip planner it adds quite a bit of time on to basic trips. The other thing is these chargers might not be covered so you're out in the rain, or snow and the lots haven't been cleared. That just doesn't seem fun with 2 kids. You also have to think about the AC / heat, how you're driving, battery degrading after first year or so. It's an anxiety I don't need. Plus in my case I would have to get my Tesla towed 3 hours away with major issues. I now minor ones the traveling repair can deal with. A neighbor had a collision and didn't have his Tesla for 4 months. The facilities are so backed up. No one knows how to work on them except Tesla. Electric is the future, but it's like 4 to 5 years out. Hybrid is good enough right now. With ICE you literally pull of an exit, take 5 minutes to fill up and you're back.
- vel0city 4y ago
  > That's just not true. Its objectively the reality I live with. I definitely spend more time pumping gas in my Santa Fe than I do my Mach E. A bit over 5 minutes every week and a half versus 0 minutes so far in my Mach E. 34.666 * 5 = 173.33 minutes of waiting, as a lower bound, in the ICE means just shy of 3 hours a year I spend waiting on my gas car. Meanwhile, the amount of time I spent waiting on my Mach E to charge last year was 0 minutes. This is objective and factual. > You also have to think about the AC / heat, how you're driving, battery degrading after first year or so. If you want to, you can stress about these things. I don't, I practically always have way more range than I need every time I leave my garage. Meanwhile I do regularly get frustrated about getting a low tank of gas and think "ugh, gotta stop by the gas station sometime on this trip, even though I'm in a hurry and would really rather just get to where I'm going". You could also stress about things like AC or how you're driving in your ICE, these things impact your gas mileage and will impact what you spend. Which your per-mile energy cost is waaaaaaaaay higher in an ICE than an EV, so you'd think you want to conserve even more. Having a lead foot in an EV is a lot cheaper than in an ICE. > No one knows how to work on them except Tesla No one knows how to work on my Mach E than Tesla? Only Tesla can repair a Ioniq 5? That sure seeems strange to me!
- andjd 4y ago
  Alternate solution: If you don't feel that that EVs are suitable yet for you to make road trips, you can still buy an EV for your daily needs and rent a gas-powered car for the occasional times you need to take longer trips.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  > I've seen a bunch of these longer drives on Youtube. Cool, now consider that lots of people make very few longer drives. They're not deluding themselves just because they use a car differently than you do!
- tomtheelder 4y ago
  If you regularly drive hundreds of miles at a time, then your position is fair enough. Very few people do that. I and many people I know own an EV, and it is literally zero stress. In fact it's less stress than with my old ICE car, because I effectively always have a full tank in the morning. I don't even have level 2 home charging, but it's still a complete non issue. I've done longer drives too, and I would describe those as "slightly inconvenient." In all honesty I sort of appreciate the breaks, but I know it annoys my girlfriend who likes to keep rolling. It definitely adds time, that's a fact! But realistically owning an EV today is incredibly straightforward and stress free. I an everyone I know who has one would agree.
davoneus 4y ago
That's YOUR experience, but that certainly doesn't translate over to an appt dweller who doesn't have their own garage to charge their BEV with. You better believe they WILL sit for a dang good bit of time waiting for their vehicle to charge.
- andjd 4y ago
  That's a fair critique. It's certainly easiest for homeowners with a grange to do EVs. Eventually, market forces will make apartment owners who offer parking to also offer EV charging, but I think it would be reasonable for government regulations to require them to install chargers for renters who request it. Policy solutions are harder for neighborhoods where residents rely on on-street parking, as the municipality would probably have to install and maintain a lot of level 2 chargers, but this would still be worth doing. In the mean time, if you're in this situation, I personally wouldn't fault you for getting a gas-powered car. EVs are still more constrained by supply than demand.
- vel0city 4y ago
  The majority of Americans live in single family homes. The majority of Americans can charge an EV at home.
  - p_l 4y ago
    Americans with single family homes aren't the only market in USA. USA is not the only country in the world. Other countries can have wildly different situation and setup, and in fact building home charging stations might be problematic for significant portion of future buyers that Toyota might want to grab. P.S. A bit under 30% of worldwide Toyota production goes into USA - that still leaves a huge chunk of sales that might have wildly different needs to cater to.
    - vel0city 4y ago
      A slight majority of Europeans live in single family homes as well. It's not like single family homes are something that only exist in America and the entire rest of the car buying world is "wildly different". I realize not every car buyer can have their own charger at home, that's obvious. But let's not act like it's a rare thing for people to have the ability to charge at home. Over half of all households in Europe and US can probably add home charging for little cost. That's a ton of EVs to sell, an absolutely massive market able to be addressed now.
jcranmer 4y ago
When trips are drive-to-work-each-day, and you can tolerate charging at your house overnight, the wait times for an EV charge are not an issue. When your trips are drive-across-the-country, so you need to recharge multiple times en route, that's when it starts becoming substantially harder to find something else to overlap with your need to recharge. Even just doing Midwest-to-Mid-Atlantic drives, I'd complete my lunch pitstop (including eating, filling gas tank, and emptying bladder) before an EV charge could fill up again, even discounting the fact that the lesser range of an EV means I'd need to squeeze in another charging pitstop uncomfortably early to overlap with dinner.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  I think you cover it, but from elapsed time, the average consumer use is mostly commute or errand based with the occasional (or weekend trip). What this means is that if you fill gas 1-2x a week to handle the average 20 mile commute, you've saved 10 minutes because the refill of the electric is at home, with little effort. Now you bank that 10 minutes every time you take any one way <~200 mile trip with electricity at the ends. If you're doing regular multi region drives you are not average, you're likely in the top 1% of consumer long range trips. To add, the longer and "more often" stops are healthier for you and your passengers; very few cars have a less than 200 mile range now, and if you're sitting for that period of time, moving (or at least not sitting) is a good idea to prevent deep vein thrombosis, the longer the better.
- vel0city 4y ago
  > When your trips are drive-across-the-country Good thing I do well less than 1 of those on average every year, along with practically every other passenger car in America. Is driving from San Diego to New York City really a common thing people do here? Is that what the average driver does on a weekly basis? Is that really what we should be targeting our cars to do?
  - zardo 4y ago
    Coast to coast is very uncommon. San Diego to Seattle, or New York to Miami would be much more typical of a once per year road trip.
michaelgrosner2 4y ago
Seconded. I live in NJ, too, so any trip to a gas station usually involves waiting quite a bit for a human attendant to pump my gas. At least I don't need an attendant to charge my EV! I don't need to swipe a credit card, I don't need to wait for a pump spot to open, and I don't need to listen to ads playing on a tiny speaker. The EV charging routine is so much better in every way than ICE. Another consideration is that I always have a full 'tank' in my EV, almost every single time I drive. There is no consideration I'll run out of juice during my commute or errands.

andjd 4y ago

This is quickly becoming outdated. Fast-charging times of about 15 minutes are possible in the US with currently existing infrastructure and vehicles, and this speed is likely to keep improving as the tech gets better. And for the typical daily driving needs of most people, plugging in to charge overnight is sufficient, so you only need to worry about charging times in rare occurrences, such as when taking a road trip.

protomyth 4y ago
Which car can be fully charged in 15 minutes? I've looked and cannot find one except some supercars that are way out of reach.
- natch 4y ago
  “fully” charged is a red herring, and foolish in practice.
  - protomyth 4y ago
    Ok, which car can charge to 300+ miles in 15 minutes? I can fill my car in 15 minutes and get another 300+ miles.
    - tomtheelder 4y ago
      Obviously you can't do that, and no one is arguing that a "full tank" type EV fillup is as fast as it is with an ICE vehicle. But as an EV owner, long (like multi hundred mile) trips are the only time I would ever do that. Otherwise it's just frequent top ups while I'm at home or doing errands or whatever. So from my perspective the time to charge to full is kind of a red herring unless you are someone who regularly does like 300+ mile trips.
      - protomyth 4y ago
        Well, I am someone who regularly does 300+ mile trips and I currently have a hybrid but they are not great on highways (for obvious reasons). Time of charge is a big component of my next buying decision.

pettusftw 4y ago

Proponents of electric cars love to talk about daily commutes and charging at home over night and how they never have to "fill up", while either never leaving a 200 mile bubble around their home, or pretending they're okay with paying an extra $1k+ to rent an ICE car for road trips. As someone who does not have a commute and mainly owns a car for the 600-2000 mile road trips I take _at least_ every ~6 weeks. I'd much prefer a PHEV, which incidentally can drastically increase range while also handling the ~30 mile average daily commute electric-only quite easily. The absolutism is tiring.