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People get triggered when I say this but I’m holding out for something over 400 miles in range. By the time you account for the range being exaggerated, then t

People get triggered when I say this but I’m holding out for something over 400 miles in range. By the time you account for the range being exaggerated, then that you’re not supposed to charge to 100%, and then that you want to be able to drive fast on the highway, your available range is dropping fast. My goal would be only making one charging stop a day on a road trip for going at least 600 miles.

aaronbrethorst 4y ago
Why would someone be offended by your preferences about an electric vehicle's range?
- somerandomqaguy 4y ago
  It's the internet, if you breathe, someone somewhere will find that offensive. That being said, inevitably someone will start with a question of, "Why do you NEED 1500 miles of range?", point out that most people commute less then that and state that you can rent an ICE for when you need it, and proclaim that's all you really need. Edit: And there you go, someone's already chimed in with the question.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
  Here's using "triggered" to mean "respond emotionally" rather than "offended."
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    “Triggered” also sometimes seems to mean “disagreed with me”. I try not to use it, as it raises the temperature without contributing anything to the conversation.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
But how often do you actually make a 600 mile trip? (and how often in a day? That's a good 10 hours of driving) Carrying around all that extra battery weight for your daily 20 mile round-trip commute doesn't seem very efficient (energy or moneywise). And if you did make a 600 mile trip in a day, well, you've gotta stop to eat, right? The car can be charging while you're eating.
- novok 4y ago
  The basic idea is enough range for 2 4h segments on highways, going uphill into the cold mountains & and the heater on with a break in the middle for lunch and charging. The rating is 400 miles, but those 4 things will drop it a good chunk.
- garrickvanburen 4y ago
  I make a 400mile trips frequently enough that I don’t want a separate vehicle just for shorter trips.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  But the pitch needs to be better than “this car is great, and you can just buy or rent a second car for when you want to do a 600+ mile trip.”
  - markdown 4y ago
    Why? This car covers 99.99% of your current car usage. If you want that extra .01% (driving all day without stopping), you can rent a polluting vehicle in 5 mins on your phone.
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      If it’s actually 99.99%, then sure. That’s an hour per year. If you’re only going to do a 24-hour road trip once every 24 years then of course renting is probably the best option.
      - markdown 4y ago
        LOL, I got carried away there. How many times a year do you do a 24hr road trip, or even an 8hr non-stop road trip?
  - com2kid 4y ago
    I live in Seattle. Lots of hills. Hills everywhere. Going to the grocery store a mile away involves more elevation changes than people living in Florida go through in a year. Seriously, tons of hills in every direction. Driving around the city, my current compact ICE, 1.6L turbo, tiny hatchback, gets around 22 miles to the gallon. My other car, ICE, subcompact, 2L engine, 140 horse power, barely hits 20 MPG. For my city's topography, EVs make a ton of sense.
jonpurdy 4y ago
I’m actually the opposite but thought I’d reply to your comment since they’re opposing ends of needs. I have a Spark EV that did 130 miles new, now ~100 highway miles after 6 years. The warranty on the battery lasts another two years and they don’t make that battery anymore anyway. Replacement car would be a $27K Chevy Bolt, which is much longer range and way more expensive than I need. I’d love to see a standard battery back that was around 100 miles range that cars would use 1-4 of them to achieve whatever range is desired. Not to mention a standard form factor that would be available for 2-3 decades to prevent a car like my Spark EV with just 50K km from becoming landfill in a few years.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  Your spark is "headed for the landfill" because it was a compliance car that was wildly unpopular, selling in very low numbers, and was plagued with problems. Even still, GM went to the effort to completely re-engineer the battery from using A123 cells to LG cells...and only just this year announced they were discontinuing availability for replacement batteries. Someone will provide aftermarket battery servicing, if the market is big enough (it isn't, most likely. Protip: don't buy compliance cars for long term ownership...) Nothing stops you from buying a used Bolt (or used EV from Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, VW, etc). GM extended the battery warranties on Bolts that were recalled by something like 8-10 years. And given GM probably sells more Bolts in a month than the entire production run of Sparks and has for years now, there's almost certainly going to be a large aftermarket scene for battery repair, just as there is for Priuses.)
  - secabeen 4y ago
    That's really too bad. I loved my spark, and was hoping to get a used one as an around-town car for my kid. It was the smallest 4-door car on the market, could fit into any parking space, and really was a wonderful car for neighborhood and nearby-neighborhood driving. I still miss mine. I never had any problems with it, and returned it at the end of it's lease because I had started a family, and needed a bigger car. I still get letters from lemon-law firms asking if I need help with a car I haven't had for years.
  - 4y ago
clouddrover 4y ago
Here are the results for various EVs in a real world highway range test: - https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ - Updated with the Hummer EV: https://insideevs.com/reviews/612030/hummer-ev-range-test/ https://insideevs.com/reviews/612030/hummer-ev-range-test/ The Lucid Air meets and the Mercedes EQS very nearly meets your 400 mile benchmark. The BMW iX xDrive50 did 345 miles, so a 600 mile trip could be done with only one charging stop with enough buffer to find a charger. Due to the nature of EV charge curves it can be faster to stop multiple times and charge from a low state of charge to a maximum of 80%. The remaining 20% will charge slower to protect the battery pack. The ideal would be a battery pack capable of a high and flat charge curve. A 100 kWh pack that could sustain 500 kW for the whole curve would charge 0-100% in 12 minutes. Still not as fast as fueling, but 12 minutes for a full charge would be very practical.
- slaw 4y ago
  EPA highway range test is done at average speed 48.3 mph. It should be 70 mph like Inside EVs or 75 mph like Car And Driver or clearly advertised as EPA highway range at 48 mph. https://www.slashgear.com/the-weird-thing-about-epa-car-economy-range-testing-17617191/ https://www.slashgear.com/the-weird-thing-about-epa-car-econ...
trog 4y ago
> People get triggered when I say this but I’m holding out for something over 400 miles in range. I have almost the opposite desire! I want something that is maybe 100-200km range at a much lower price point. If I could buy something like an electric Mazda 3 with that sort of range at anything like the price point of the ICE version I'd buy one tomorrow. It would suffice for 99% of my driven distance, easily. I think this car will sell for over $70k here in Australia, from a quick websearch. This pushes it straight into luxury car [tax] territory; I am not a car person & have no interest in dropping that much on a car.
- TheHappyOddish 4y ago
  LCT is over $85k for EVe, so it doesn't fit into that territory. A model 3 standard is $60k and the savings for most people on fuel is why you see them everywhere. MG have a car for $45k that fits your requrements though.
- ahelwer 4y ago
  The car you're looking for is a used 2015 Nissan Leaf. Absolute top-tier city driving car.
  - daurnimator 4y ago
    That seems to be at least a $22000 car. (cheapest one for sale right now: https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/2015-nissan-leaf-aze0-auto/OAG-AD-21308909/?Cr=1 https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/2015-nissan-leaf-az... ) How on earth is that worth it when a similar era e.g. mazda 3 is $13000?
    - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
      $9000 is a couple of years of fuel for a lot of people. Other incentives (cheaper rego, no FBT, etc) may apply to you depending on your position/state. You're also likely to spend significantly less in maintenance due to simpler systems with less wearable parts.
    - xxpor 4y ago
KennyBlanken 4y ago
edit: everything I said below is moot, as BMW's iX offers 600 mile range! I presume parent commenter will be promptly purchasing one, as the only thing stopping them from going EV was the inability to buy a 600 mile range EV /s I think the reason people "get triggered" is because you're throwing around a lot of claims about EVs that at best are not any different from mileage/range numbers in ICE vehicles and at worst are not true...not just because you want over 400 miles of range. I mean, dude: Tesla drivers aren't speed demons but they're no hypermiling prius drivers. Every time I see one, it's being driven unremarkably - ie just like everyone else. Also, there's such a thing as buying based off the vehicle you need +99% of the time, and renting for the 1%. I know someone who owns an SUV that doesn't get great gas mileage, and they rent a more fuel-efficient sedan for when they have to drive on a long business trip, saving miles on their own car and also making the writeoff really easy. >My goal would be only making one charging stop a day on a road trip for going at least 600 miles. Averaging 70mph (which is generous given traffic and probably having some travel on slower secondary roads) that's 8.5 hours. That's a lot of driving for just one stop. My car warns me around 2 hours in that I should take a break, for example. Around the three hour mark, I'm usually ready for a leg-stretch, bathroom break, and giving my brain a bit of a rest. Given humans generally like 2-3 meals a day, maybe, just maybe, "I wanna drive for 8-9 hours with one stop and until I can do that in an EV, I'm not buying one" is just a tad on the side of excuse-making? An Ioniq 5 (and most other 800v architecture cars) will recharge 80% of its range in under 20 minutes on a 250kw charger (which are spreading pretty rapidly, even in the US)...that's not a lot more than what "everyone hit the bathroom, grab some food/drink, stretch your legs, and meet back at the car" takes. Given most EVs these days come with lots of trip planning and there are numerous websites to help with it as well - allowing you to specify you want to stop at chargers near certain amenities, for example - I really don't get the concern. People seriously need to get over this range anxiety stuff.
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  > Also, there's such a thing as buying based off the vehicle you need +99% of the time, and renting for the 1%. Yeah that's a complete non-starter for the average person. People just don't care about EV any more they care about diesel vs mid-grade vs premium. What they do care about is not having to have a second car for the couple-times-a-year use cases, especially since the first car tends to be one of the biggest purchases they've ever made. >" is just a tad on the side of excuse-making? If the product is inconvenient, the only customers you'll get are fanboys. You're just not gonna get adoption without feature parity.
originalvichy 4y ago
The reason people will say that sounds unreasonable is the fact that the vast majority of people will probably be discomforted more by having to drive almost 1000 km with only one stop compared to having to stop two or three times to take bathroom breaks or eat. Not to even mention the fact that it is not safe for you or others to drive that long just one break.
- emptyfile 4y ago
  Do HN readers even grasp the fact that most people in the world don't have a bunch of Tesla chargers on their highways? That you're writing your comments on the global internet? That some people drive into nature where there is no electricity whatsoever?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - originalvichy 4y ago
    Sure. A person regularly going off-grid and that doesn't have an effective charging network in their country or continent are probably not thinking of EVs.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
AYBABTME 4y ago
I did SF to LA on one recharge with my Model Y. Wasn't very pleasant (physically painful) and I was following faster cars to get in their wind shadow. It works. I was going as fast as the fastest cars this way. Add hills though and it wouldn't work. I wouldn't hold out if I were you. 400 miles range will eventually come but what's the point in waiting? EV cars are more pleasant to drive than ICE ones, full stop. Don't hold up, just upgrade to the 400 miles one when it comes out.
QuarterReptile 4y ago
Honestly, it sounds like you want a plug-in-hybrid, unless you're only doing long trips. I looked at getting one with about a 35 mile range, which would cover >90% of my days driving, but I found it too expensive (because 2021 and because I prefer older used cars.)
pornel 4y ago
I don't doubt that this is what you prefer, but for the foreseeable future it's going to be a heavy and expensive car. You'll be paying a pretty high price to save about 20 minutes on a 10-hour trip. Currently leading solutions for fast road trips are rapid charging or battery swaps, but you will have to stop a couple of times. Here's timing of 1000KM (~620mi) trips: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzvvWJHrBS82echMVJH37kwgjE/edit#gid=15442336 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzv...
fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
Consider: your car can charge at some maximum rate. Let’s call it 200kw. That means you can add so many miles of range per minute of charging. Is it really that important whether that charging occurs during one thirty-minute stop or two fifteen-minute stops? When you make the battery really big, you increase the weight of the car. The number of miles of range per kWh goes down. Actually, it’s not optimal to use the entire range between each stop, because the battery car charge faster between (very roughly) 20% and 80%. The most important thing is to have a lot of charging stations in spots that you can very quickly access from the highway. Then you can stop when optimal and minimize the amount of wasted time (your car’s navigation should tell you when). At some point, putting even more batteries in the car will not get you there faster. Barring some big breakthrough in battery tech (or swaps), gas cars will have the advantage in miles per minute added during fueling. There are cars with 400 mile range, but think hard about whether that is really what you want. It’ll cost you more to buy and charge, and the utility you get may not be worth it.
- clouddrover 4y ago
  > Barring some big breakthrough in battery tech (or swaps) Nio's cars can swap 100 kWh packs in 6 minutes. The swap station charges the packs to 90% so the swap is equivalent to charging the car at 900 kW for 6 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmWL1hZQmD0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmWL1hZQmD0
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    For swaps, the tech exists, and manufacturers just need to make it happen. I read a convincing article claiming that Tesla spiked the ball on their swap system because it was just a compliance program.
    - masklinn 4y ago
      The problem of swapping is that it makes no sense at scale: you need to stock enough charged batteries at swap stations that you can do the swaps, with the equipment. And batteries are not interchangeable, because they’re structural and to maximise packing. So you need to stock batteries for every car brand if not model at every station. And in the right capacities do you don’t downgrade users (or upgrade them). Battery swaps make sense on scooters because the cell packing is a lot less critical, so you can have a standard which is resilient and easy to manipulate and eat the loss of cell volume. The same might happen with trucks. If manufacturers can settle on standards in order to maintain travel rates.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
1) your car will lose max range over it's service life. 2) charging to max range is bad for the battery 3) the rated range isn't the actual range in real life 4) you want to drive 10mph faster 5) cold is hard on EVs 6) wind 7) less availability of charging 8) you don't take it down to 0 miles All of a sudden, a 400 mile range car is 280 or worse in effective distance.
- potatochup 4y ago
  Charging to max range is only bad for certain chemistry. Teslas coming out of China with LFP packs say they can be charged to 100pct without issue, while the other models still recommend avoiding charging to 100pct unless you are doing road trips
ip26 4y ago
I don’t know all your circumstances, but I have found good charging options matters significantly more than extra capacity. 300 mile range is enough to go 150 miles out into the woods and back, which is a good distance. A midway charge at, say, an RV park along the way brings you up to 300 out and 300 back. Further, when traveling along the freeway, a large battery just gets you a little further off the initial charge. It’s really your charging speed that sets your trip time. I will still shell out for high range models, because I do stretch things, but I shop the charge network more than I do the range.

aaronbrethorst 4y ago

Why would someone be offended by your preferences about an electric vehicle's range?

somerandomqaguy 4y ago
It's the internet, if you breathe, someone somewhere will find that offensive. That being said, inevitably someone will start with a question of, "Why do you NEED 1500 miles of range?", point out that most people commute less then that and state that you can rent an ICE for when you need it, and proclaim that's all you really need. Edit: And there you go, someone's already chimed in with the question.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
Here's using "triggered" to mean "respond emotionally" rather than "offended."
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  “Triggered” also sometimes seems to mean “disagreed with me”. I try not to use it, as it raises the temperature without contributing anything to the conversation.

UncleOxidant 4y ago

But how often do you actually make a 600 mile trip? (and how often in a day? That's a good 10 hours of driving) Carrying around all that extra battery weight for your daily 20 mile round-trip commute doesn't seem very efficient (energy or moneywise). And if you did make a 600 mile trip in a day, well, you've gotta stop to eat, right? The car can be charging while you're eating.

novok 4y ago
The basic idea is enough range for 2 4h segments on highways, going uphill into the cold mountains & and the heater on with a break in the middle for lunch and charging. The rating is 400 miles, but those 4 things will drop it a good chunk.
garrickvanburen 4y ago
I make a 400mile trips frequently enough that I don’t want a separate vehicle just for shorter trips.
tshaddox 4y ago
But the pitch needs to be better than “this car is great, and you can just buy or rent a second car for when you want to do a 600+ mile trip.”
- markdown 4y ago
  Why? This car covers 99.99% of your current car usage. If you want that extra .01% (driving all day without stopping), you can rent a polluting vehicle in 5 mins on your phone.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    If it’s actually 99.99%, then sure. That’s an hour per year. If you’re only going to do a 24-hour road trip once every 24 years then of course renting is probably the best option.
    - markdown 4y ago
      LOL, I got carried away there. How many times a year do you do a 24hr road trip, or even an 8hr non-stop road trip?
- com2kid 4y ago
  I live in Seattle. Lots of hills. Hills everywhere. Going to the grocery store a mile away involves more elevation changes than people living in Florida go through in a year. Seriously, tons of hills in every direction. Driving around the city, my current compact ICE, 1.6L turbo, tiny hatchback, gets around 22 miles to the gallon. My other car, ICE, subcompact, 2L engine, 140 horse power, barely hits 20 MPG. For my city's topography, EVs make a ton of sense.

jonpurdy 4y ago

I’m actually the opposite but thought I’d reply to your comment since they’re opposing ends of needs. I have a Spark EV that did 130 miles new, now ~100 highway miles after 6 years. The warranty on the battery lasts another two years and they don’t make that battery anymore anyway. Replacement car would be a $27K Chevy Bolt, which is much longer range and way more expensive than I need. I’d love to see a standard battery back that was around 100 miles range that cars would use 1-4 of them to achieve whatever range is desired. Not to mention a standard form factor that would be available for 2-3 decades to prevent a car like my Spark EV with just 50K km from becoming landfill in a few years.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
Your spark is "headed for the landfill" because it was a compliance car that was wildly unpopular, selling in very low numbers, and was plagued with problems. Even still, GM went to the effort to completely re-engineer the battery from using A123 cells to LG cells...and only just this year announced they were discontinuing availability for replacement batteries. Someone will provide aftermarket battery servicing, if the market is big enough (it isn't, most likely. Protip: don't buy compliance cars for long term ownership...) Nothing stops you from buying a used Bolt (or used EV from Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, VW, etc). GM extended the battery warranties on Bolts that were recalled by something like 8-10 years. And given GM probably sells more Bolts in a month than the entire production run of Sparks and has for years now, there's almost certainly going to be a large aftermarket scene for battery repair, just as there is for Priuses.)
- secabeen 4y ago
  That's really too bad. I loved my spark, and was hoping to get a used one as an around-town car for my kid. It was the smallest 4-door car on the market, could fit into any parking space, and really was a wonderful car for neighborhood and nearby-neighborhood driving. I still miss mine. I never had any problems with it, and returned it at the end of it's lease because I had started a family, and needed a bigger car. I still get letters from lemon-law firms asking if I need help with a car I haven't had for years.
- 4y ago

clouddrover 4y ago

Here are the results for various EVs in a real world highway range test: - https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ - Updated with the Hummer EV: https://insideevs.com/reviews/612030/hummer-ev-range-test/ https://insideevs.com/reviews/612030/hummer-ev-range-test/ The Lucid Air meets and the Mercedes EQS very nearly meets your 400 mile benchmark. The BMW iX xDrive50 did 345 miles, so a 600 mile trip could be done with only one charging stop with enough buffer to find a charger. Due to the nature of EV charge curves it can be faster to stop multiple times and charge from a low state of charge to a maximum of 80%. The remaining 20% will charge slower to protect the battery pack. The ideal would be a battery pack capable of a high and flat charge curve. A 100 kWh pack that could sustain 500 kW for the whole curve would charge 0-100% in 12 minutes. Still not as fast as fueling, but 12 minutes for a full charge would be very practical.

slaw 4y ago
EPA highway range test is done at average speed 48.3 mph. It should be 70 mph like Inside EVs or 75 mph like Car And Driver or clearly advertised as EPA highway range at 48 mph. https://www.slashgear.com/the-weird-thing-about-epa-car-economy-range-testing-17617191/ https://www.slashgear.com/the-weird-thing-about-epa-car-econ...

trog 4y ago

> People get triggered when I say this but I’m holding out for something over 400 miles in range. I have almost the opposite desire! I want something that is maybe 100-200km range at a much lower price point. If I could buy something like an electric Mazda 3 with that sort of range at anything like the price point of the ICE version I'd buy one tomorrow. It would suffice for 99% of my driven distance, easily. I think this car will sell for over $70k here in Australia, from a quick websearch. This pushes it straight into luxury car [tax] territory; I am not a car person & have no interest in dropping that much on a car.

TheHappyOddish 4y ago
LCT is over $85k for EVe, so it doesn't fit into that territory. A model 3 standard is $60k and the savings for most people on fuel is why you see them everywhere. MG have a car for $45k that fits your requrements though.
ahelwer 4y ago
The car you're looking for is a used 2015 Nissan Leaf. Absolute top-tier city driving car.
- daurnimator 4y ago
  That seems to be at least a $22000 car. (cheapest one for sale right now: https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/2015-nissan-leaf-aze0-auto/OAG-AD-21308909/?Cr=1 https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/2015-nissan-leaf-az... ) How on earth is that worth it when a similar era e.g. mazda 3 is $13000?
  - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
    $9000 is a couple of years of fuel for a lot of people. Other incentives (cheaper rego, no FBT, etc) may apply to you depending on your position/state. You're also likely to spend significantly less in maintenance due to simpler systems with less wearable parts.
  - xxpor 4y ago

KennyBlanken 4y ago

edit: everything I said below is moot, as BMW's iX offers 600 mile range! I presume parent commenter will be promptly purchasing one, as the only thing stopping them from going EV was the inability to buy a 600 mile range EV /s I think the reason people "get triggered" is because you're throwing around a lot of claims about EVs that at best are not any different from mileage/range numbers in ICE vehicles and at worst are not true...not just because you want over 400 miles of range. I mean, dude: Tesla drivers aren't speed demons but they're no hypermiling prius drivers. Every time I see one, it's being driven unremarkably - ie just like everyone else. Also, there's such a thing as buying based off the vehicle you need +99% of the time, and renting for the 1%. I know someone who owns an SUV that doesn't get great gas mileage, and they rent a more fuel-efficient sedan for when they have to drive on a long business trip, saving miles on their own car and also making the writeoff really easy. >My goal would be only making one charging stop a day on a road trip for going at least 600 miles. Averaging 70mph (which is generous given traffic and probably having some travel on slower secondary roads) that's 8.5 hours. That's a lot of driving for just one stop. My car warns me around 2 hours in that I should take a break, for example. Around the three hour mark, I'm usually ready for a leg-stretch, bathroom break, and giving my brain a bit of a rest. Given humans generally like 2-3 meals a day, maybe, just maybe, "I wanna drive for 8-9 hours with one stop and until I can do that in an EV, I'm not buying one" is just a tad on the side of excuse-making? An Ioniq 5 (and most other 800v architecture cars) will recharge 80% of its range in under 20 minutes on a 250kw charger (which are spreading pretty rapidly, even in the US)...that's not a lot more than what "everyone hit the bathroom, grab some food/drink, stretch your legs, and meet back at the car" takes. Given most EVs these days come with lots of trip planning and there are numerous websites to help with it as well - allowing you to specify you want to stop at chargers near certain amenities, for example - I really don't get the concern. People seriously need to get over this range anxiety stuff.

pxmpxm 4y ago
> Also, there's such a thing as buying based off the vehicle you need +99% of the time, and renting for the 1%. Yeah that's a complete non-starter for the average person. People just don't care about EV any more they care about diesel vs mid-grade vs premium. What they do care about is not having to have a second car for the couple-times-a-year use cases, especially since the first car tends to be one of the biggest purchases they've ever made. >" is just a tad on the side of excuse-making? If the product is inconvenient, the only customers you'll get are fanboys. You're just not gonna get adoption without feature parity.

originalvichy 4y ago

The reason people will say that sounds unreasonable is the fact that the vast majority of people will probably be discomforted more by having to drive almost 1000 km with only one stop compared to having to stop two or three times to take bathroom breaks or eat. Not to even mention the fact that it is not safe for you or others to drive that long just one break.

emptyfile 4y ago
Do HN readers even grasp the fact that most people in the world don't have a bunch of Tesla chargers on their highways? That you're writing your comments on the global internet? That some people drive into nature where there is no electricity whatsoever?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- originalvichy 4y ago
  Sure. A person regularly going off-grid and that doesn't have an effective charging network in their country or continent are probably not thinking of EVs.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

AYBABTME 4y ago

I did SF to LA on one recharge with my Model Y. Wasn't very pleasant (physically painful) and I was following faster cars to get in their wind shadow. It works. I was going as fast as the fastest cars this way. Add hills though and it wouldn't work. I wouldn't hold out if I were you. 400 miles range will eventually come but what's the point in waiting? EV cars are more pleasant to drive than ICE ones, full stop. Don't hold up, just upgrade to the 400 miles one when it comes out.

QuarterReptile 4y ago

Honestly, it sounds like you want a plug-in-hybrid, unless you're only doing long trips. I looked at getting one with about a 35 mile range, which would cover >90% of my days driving, but I found it too expensive (because 2021 and because I prefer older used cars.)

pornel 4y ago

I don't doubt that this is what you prefer, but for the foreseeable future it's going to be a heavy and expensive car. You'll be paying a pretty high price to save about 20 minutes on a 10-hour trip. Currently leading solutions for fast road trips are rapid charging or battery swaps, but you will have to stop a couple of times. Here's timing of 1000KM (~620mi) trips: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzvvWJHrBS82echMVJH37kwgjE/edit#gid=15442336 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzv...

fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago

Consider: your car can charge at some maximum rate. Let’s call it 200kw. That means you can add so many miles of range per minute of charging. Is it really that important whether that charging occurs during one thirty-minute stop or two fifteen-minute stops? When you make the battery really big, you increase the weight of the car. The number of miles of range per kWh goes down. Actually, it’s not optimal to use the entire range between each stop, because the battery car charge faster between (very roughly) 20% and 80%. The most important thing is to have a lot of charging stations in spots that you can very quickly access from the highway. Then you can stop when optimal and minimize the amount of wasted time (your car’s navigation should tell you when). At some point, putting even more batteries in the car will not get you there faster. Barring some big breakthrough in battery tech (or swaps), gas cars will have the advantage in miles per minute added during fueling. There are cars with 400 mile range, but think hard about whether that is really what you want. It’ll cost you more to buy and charge, and the utility you get may not be worth it.

clouddrover 4y ago
> Barring some big breakthrough in battery tech (or swaps) Nio's cars can swap 100 kWh packs in 6 minutes. The swap station charges the packs to 90% so the swap is equivalent to charging the car at 900 kW for 6 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmWL1hZQmD0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmWL1hZQmD0
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  For swaps, the tech exists, and manufacturers just need to make it happen. I read a convincing article claiming that Tesla spiked the ball on their swap system because it was just a compliance program.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    The problem of swapping is that it makes no sense at scale: you need to stock enough charged batteries at swap stations that you can do the swaps, with the equipment. And batteries are not interchangeable, because they’re structural and to maximise packing. So you need to stock batteries for every car brand if not model at every station. And in the right capacities do you don’t downgrade users (or upgrade them). Battery swaps make sense on scooters because the cell packing is a lot less critical, so you can have a standard which is resilient and easy to manipulate and eat the loss of cell volume. The same might happen with trucks. If manufacturers can settle on standards in order to maintain travel rates.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

1) your car will lose max range over it's service life. 2) charging to max range is bad for the battery 3) the rated range isn't the actual range in real life 4) you want to drive 10mph faster 5) cold is hard on EVs 6) wind 7) less availability of charging 8) you don't take it down to 0 miles All of a sudden, a 400 mile range car is 280 or worse in effective distance.

potatochup 4y ago
Charging to max range is only bad for certain chemistry. Teslas coming out of China with LFP packs say they can be charged to 100pct without issue, while the other models still recommend avoiding charging to 100pct unless you are doing road trips

ip26 4y ago

I don’t know all your circumstances, but I have found good charging options matters significantly more than extra capacity. 300 mile range is enough to go 150 miles out into the woods and back, which is a good distance. A midway charge at, say, an RV park along the way brings you up to 300 out and 300 back. Further, when traveling along the freeway, a large battery just gets you a little further off the initial charge. It’s really your charging speed that sets your trip time. I will still shell out for high range models, because I do stretch things, but I shop the charge network more than I do the range.