3 ms·

It might not matter for you. It does matter for the people making a trip across the country. Some people need cars for more than just a 50 mile daily commute.

EA-3167 3y ago
What percentage of overall miles driven are accounted for by cross-country (or lets just say multi-day trips) out of the total number of miles driven? The stat I can find states that for single-trip journeys 98% are under 50 miles, with those over 70 miles being 1%. Obviously "single-trip" is doing plenty of work there, but you can go surprisingly far in a day of driving and those are still pretty small numbers. Maybe at the end of the day the car is just not the best way to go across a country as large as the US.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  It doesn’t matter what percent of trips that represents, a lot of Americans won’t buy EVs that aren’t capable of making these trips when they want to make them. Nobody wants to take a Greyhound bus to see their parents that live 4 hours away in the next state over.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    The thing is we know already that single-trips like that are less than 1% of all miles driven, and 4 hours is definitely a single-trip. I'd add that even with an EV and needing to stop for a charge, that's still very much a single trip affair. I'm sure that some people won't buy a car on that basis, but I suspect the vast majority will. The more people buy them, the more the infrastructure caters to it, the more the technology is funded and advances, and the remaining holdouts will eventually be sufficiently incentivized.
    - lockhouse 3y ago
      I’m not arguing against EVs at all, just making the case that 350 miles of range isn’t excessive by any means, especially once you account for battery degradation over time. Personally the absolute minimum range I would consider for an EV is 250 miles with 300 or more being ideal.
- supertrope 3y ago
  The existence of right off highway gas stations, rest stops, motels, and fast food restaurants caters to road trippers. As much as I wish we had a robust inter-city train network people expect to be able to drive 400 miles in a day, stopping only every 1-2 hours for 10 min. As opposed to waiting for one of four charging spots to become available and taking 30 min to get another 100 mi of range.
undersuit 3y ago
So why does your car have to be able to handle trips across the street to cross continental trips? Why are we buying the same exact cars? Because one day I should be able to travel cross country with the car I use to get groceries?
- lockhouse 3y ago
  We don't need to own the exact same car. However, unless it is absurdly cheap a car with 100 miles or less of range is unlikely to sell in sufficient numbers in the United States to be viable to produce. A car is an expensive enough purchase that most consumers want a vehicle that will cover as many of their potential use cases as they can afford. This is why you see a lot of suburbanites buy pickup trucks. They don't need it for 99% of the year, but it comes in really handy for that 1% of the time where they are buying lumber from Home Depot, throwing an already put together barbecue grill in the bed (because why not, it costs the same as the one in the box with the barely written in English instructions), or going off the beaten trail to go deer hunting with your buddy from college.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

EA-3167 3y ago

What percentage of overall miles driven are accounted for by cross-country (or lets just say multi-day trips) out of the total number of miles driven? The stat I can find states that for single-trip journeys 98% are under 50 miles, with those over 70 miles being 1%. Obviously "single-trip" is doing plenty of work there, but you can go surprisingly far in a day of driving and those are still pretty small numbers. Maybe at the end of the day the car is just not the best way to go across a country as large as the US.

lockhouse 3y ago
It doesn’t matter what percent of trips that represents, a lot of Americans won’t buy EVs that aren’t capable of making these trips when they want to make them. Nobody wants to take a Greyhound bus to see their parents that live 4 hours away in the next state over.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  The thing is we know already that single-trips like that are less than 1% of all miles driven, and 4 hours is definitely a single-trip. I'd add that even with an EV and needing to stop for a charge, that's still very much a single trip affair. I'm sure that some people won't buy a car on that basis, but I suspect the vast majority will. The more people buy them, the more the infrastructure caters to it, the more the technology is funded and advances, and the remaining holdouts will eventually be sufficiently incentivized.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    I’m not arguing against EVs at all, just making the case that 350 miles of range isn’t excessive by any means, especially once you account for battery degradation over time. Personally the absolute minimum range I would consider for an EV is 250 miles with 300 or more being ideal.
supertrope 3y ago
The existence of right off highway gas stations, rest stops, motels, and fast food restaurants caters to road trippers. As much as I wish we had a robust inter-city train network people expect to be able to drive 400 miles in a day, stopping only every 1-2 hours for 10 min. As opposed to waiting for one of four charging spots to become available and taking 30 min to get another 100 mi of range.

undersuit 3y ago

So why does your car have to be able to handle trips across the street to cross continental trips? Why are we buying the same exact cars? Because one day I should be able to travel cross country with the car I use to get groceries?

lockhouse 3y ago
We don't need to own the exact same car. However, unless it is absurdly cheap a car with 100 miles or less of range is unlikely to sell in sufficient numbers in the United States to be viable to produce. A car is an expensive enough purchase that most consumers want a vehicle that will cover as many of their potential use cases as they can afford. This is why you see a lot of suburbanites buy pickup trucks. They don't need it for 99% of the year, but it comes in really handy for that 1% of the time where they are buying lumber from Home Depot, throwing an already put together barbecue grill in the bed (because why not, it costs the same as the one in the box with the barely written in English instructions), or going off the beaten trail to go deer hunting with your buddy from college.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]