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>> I can bring 100L gasoline with me to add 1000 km range on top of existing 500 range > This is the big advantage. No, absolutely not. Who brings 160 lbs of

>> I can bring 100L gasoline with me to add 1000 km range on top of existing 500 range > This is the big advantage. No, absolutely not. Who brings 160 lbs of gasoline with them anywhere? That's twice as much as an average cars gas tank. How many people do you know that have ever brought any gas on any trip ever? The "advantage" of being able to drive 12+ hours without taking a couple hours to charge is absolutely ridiculous. It's not something people do or should do. The only reasonable circumstance is if you're on a camping trip or something, and somehow driving hundreds of miles without passing a source of electricity- in which case yes, use a gas/ethanol car. In my honest opinion, it's a ridiculous demand that you should be able to drive 800 km without taking more than 5 minutes to stop. It's minimum 6 hours of driving, and like 30-40 minutes of charging. It's petulant to complain about that like it's a real issue. The real advantage is cost. It costs a lot of money to get a large battery that can charge quickly, when a $20k Civic can do it. Smaller the EV, the slower the charge, and the more inconvenient it is.

qingcharles 3y ago
Exactly! See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37457646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37457646
toast0 3y ago
> The "advantage" of being able to drive 12+ hours without taking a couple hours to charge is absolutely ridiculous. It's not something people do or should do. One person shouldn't drive 12 hours, but it's not bad for two people to split. It's not unreasonable at all if you have three drivers. Yes, you'll probably stop somewhere to eat and use the restroom. If that somewhere happens to have decent food, and a fast charger, and the fast charger doesn't have a line longer than your mealtime, then an EV would probaly work out. If those stars don't align, your long day of driving got even longer. I don't bring gas cans on long trips, because gas stations are ubiquitous; but I have enough gas equipmemt at home that I keep them at home, and I use them to fill up my cars at home regularly to keep the gas fresh, and avoid paying the markup of my nearest gas stations. PHEV is a better choice than either IMHO. You get two year maintenance windows, you get long distances between fueling, you can use electric for local trips if it makes sense, you can live in an apartment with no charging infrastructure, you get reduced brake wear, you get a lot of low end torque if that's relevant to you. You probably lose out on cargo space though, cause PHEVs tend not to have handy places to stash the batteries. Oh, and internet people will argue that it's the worst of both, and you'll have to ignore them.
jcgrillo 3y ago
> The "advantage" of being able to drive 12+ hours without taking a couple hours to charge is absolutely ridiculous. It's not something people do or should do. I pretty regularly drive between Washington, D.C. and northern New Hampshire. That's about a 9hr drive under good traffic and weather conditions, 575mi. My truck gets about 13.5mpg and has a range of around 300mi, so I have to stop for fuel once. It's nice to get out of the car every 4hr or so anyway. If I was driving, say, a Rivian that gets ~400mi/charge I would also only have to stop once, but the stop would take about an hour and a quarter [1]. I could probably live with that, and I'd appreciate not burning as much dino juice. However, I recently did that trip with the truck totally freighted, towing a two axle trailer. I got 9.5mpg, which is about 65% what I get empty, putting my range at ~200mi/tank. I had to fill up twice. A Rivian under similar conditions will be getting about 260mi/charge. That means I'd have to charge twice, adding 2.5hr to what's already a 9+hr trip. Another thing my truck can do is go off road. It has a mild suspension lift, and locking differentials front, center, and rear. It runs slightly taller than stock tires to give it more ground clearance. I can roll over 2-3ft high rocks without having to think too hard about it. Under these conditions, I expect to get even worse than 65% of my empty highway mileage. 50% is common, and it can even be as bad as 35% in really technical terrain. Ignoring the fact that the Rivian would likely break if I tried to take it places my truck can go off road that translates to something like 150-200mi/charge. And if you're actually taking it off road you better plan for plenty of reserve, because there aren't any chargers there. > Who brings 160 lbs of gasoline with them anywhere? Someone who wants to get there, most likely. If you calculate you need to make it a certain distance, and you know your expected fuel burn rate, then you can count up the number of jerry cans you need. In this case they needed 5 of them. So it's a question of capability, right? My truck is in some ways more capable than the EV alternative. One capability I have is to be able to throw some cans in the back and extend my range. Another capability I have is being able to travel long distances under adverse conditions. Crucially, though, the capability my truck has that the competition lacks is I can fix it and maintain it without having to hire a specialist. It has simple, impeccably engineered field serviceable systems. And it cost 1/6 what a Rivian would. If someone makes an EV with these capabilities, I'll buy it, even if it does cost as much as a damn house. Until then, I'll stick with my old truck. [1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38944499/2022-rivian-r1t-charging-test/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38944499/2022-rivian-r1t-...
myself248 3y ago
It's not necessarily at one stretch, it could also be for several days camping away from services. One of the places I've long wanted to go is about 100 miles from the nearest town with a gas station, but the roads are particularly rough so I don't expect to get highway mileage or anything close to it. In my past off-roading I've gotten roughly half my highway mileage, so let's say it costs 200 "miles worth of gas" to get there. If it takes 200 miles to get in, it also takes 200 miles to get back out, plus some margin for error, plus whatever I burn while I'm there. A few days of cooking and stuff can burn a few gallons, more if I'm also running the fridge, which is really nice on a long trip. Add that I might want to visit a few sites over a few days, and I could easily see needing more than my existing 500-miles-in-ideal-conditions range. It's trivial for me to carry another 10 gallons, which doubles my highway range to 1000 miles, and that's with one of the most fuel-efficient hatchbacks on the road. A larger vehicle would need quite a bit more. I simply don't know a way to do that with an EV. Now admittedly that's a contrived example, but it's a just-slightly-more-extreme version of some real trips I take from time to time, and it's a trip I do honestly plan to take one of these days.
- hwillis 3y ago
  couldn't even read to the second paragraph?
  - jcgrillo 3y ago
    I think they mean this part: > The only reasonable circumstance is if you're on a camping trip or something, and somehow driving hundreds of miles without passing a source of electricity- in which case yes, use a gas/ethanol car. But is it, actually, the only reasonable circumstance? That's an exceptionally strong claim.
mlyle 3y ago
To be clear, I wouldn't carry 160 lbs of gasoline with me, but I've absolutely done drives where I've stopped for gas twice and been driving >99% of the time, which electric cars can't do.

qingcharles 3y ago

Exactly! See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37457646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37457646

toast0 3y ago

> The "advantage" of being able to drive 12+ hours without taking a couple hours to charge is absolutely ridiculous. It's not something people do or should do. One person shouldn't drive 12 hours, but it's not bad for two people to split. It's not unreasonable at all if you have three drivers. Yes, you'll probably stop somewhere to eat and use the restroom. If that somewhere happens to have decent food, and a fast charger, and the fast charger doesn't have a line longer than your mealtime, then an EV would probaly work out. If those stars don't align, your long day of driving got even longer. I don't bring gas cans on long trips, because gas stations are ubiquitous; but I have enough gas equipmemt at home that I keep them at home, and I use them to fill up my cars at home regularly to keep the gas fresh, and avoid paying the markup of my nearest gas stations. PHEV is a better choice than either IMHO. You get two year maintenance windows, you get long distances between fueling, you can use electric for local trips if it makes sense, you can live in an apartment with no charging infrastructure, you get reduced brake wear, you get a lot of low end torque if that's relevant to you. You probably lose out on cargo space though, cause PHEVs tend not to have handy places to stash the batteries. Oh, and internet people will argue that it's the worst of both, and you'll have to ignore them.

jcgrillo 3y ago

> The "advantage" of being able to drive 12+ hours without taking a couple hours to charge is absolutely ridiculous. It's not something people do or should do. I pretty regularly drive between Washington, D.C. and northern New Hampshire. That's about a 9hr drive under good traffic and weather conditions, 575mi. My truck gets about 13.5mpg and has a range of around 300mi, so I have to stop for fuel once. It's nice to get out of the car every 4hr or so anyway. If I was driving, say, a Rivian that gets ~400mi/charge I would also only have to stop once, but the stop would take about an hour and a quarter [1]. I could probably live with that, and I'd appreciate not burning as much dino juice. However, I recently did that trip with the truck totally freighted, towing a two axle trailer. I got 9.5mpg, which is about 65% what I get empty, putting my range at ~200mi/tank. I had to fill up twice. A Rivian under similar conditions will be getting about 260mi/charge. That means I'd have to charge twice, adding 2.5hr to what's already a 9+hr trip. Another thing my truck can do is go off road. It has a mild suspension lift, and locking differentials front, center, and rear. It runs slightly taller than stock tires to give it more ground clearance. I can roll over 2-3ft high rocks without having to think too hard about it. Under these conditions, I expect to get even worse than 65% of my empty highway mileage. 50% is common, and it can even be as bad as 35% in really technical terrain. Ignoring the fact that the Rivian would likely break if I tried to take it places my truck can go off road that translates to something like 150-200mi/charge. And if you're actually taking it off road you better plan for plenty of reserve, because there aren't any chargers there. > Who brings 160 lbs of gasoline with them anywhere? Someone who wants to get there, most likely. If you calculate you need to make it a certain distance, and you know your expected fuel burn rate, then you can count up the number of jerry cans you need. In this case they needed 5 of them. So it's a question of capability, right? My truck is in some ways more capable than the EV alternative. One capability I have is to be able to throw some cans in the back and extend my range. Another capability I have is being able to travel long distances under adverse conditions. Crucially, though, the capability my truck has that the competition lacks is I can fix it and maintain it without having to hire a specialist. It has simple, impeccably engineered field serviceable systems. And it cost 1/6 what a Rivian would. If someone makes an EV with these capabilities, I'll buy it, even if it does cost as much as a damn house. Until then, I'll stick with my old truck. [1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38944499/2022-rivian-r1t-charging-test/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38944499/2022-rivian-r1t-...

myself248 3y ago

It's not necessarily at one stretch, it could also be for several days camping away from services. One of the places I've long wanted to go is about 100 miles from the nearest town with a gas station, but the roads are particularly rough so I don't expect to get highway mileage or anything close to it. In my past off-roading I've gotten roughly half my highway mileage, so let's say it costs 200 "miles worth of gas" to get there. If it takes 200 miles to get in, it also takes 200 miles to get back out, plus some margin for error, plus whatever I burn while I'm there. A few days of cooking and stuff can burn a few gallons, more if I'm also running the fridge, which is really nice on a long trip. Add that I might want to visit a few sites over a few days, and I could easily see needing more than my existing 500-miles-in-ideal-conditions range. It's trivial for me to carry another 10 gallons, which doubles my highway range to 1000 miles, and that's with one of the most fuel-efficient hatchbacks on the road. A larger vehicle would need quite a bit more. I simply don't know a way to do that with an EV. Now admittedly that's a contrived example, but it's a just-slightly-more-extreme version of some real trips I take from time to time, and it's a trip I do honestly plan to take one of these days.

hwillis 3y ago
couldn't even read to the second paragraph?
- jcgrillo 3y ago
  I think they mean this part: > The only reasonable circumstance is if you're on a camping trip or something, and somehow driving hundreds of miles without passing a source of electricity- in which case yes, use a gas/ethanol car. But is it, actually, the only reasonable circumstance? That's an exceptionally strong claim.

mlyle 3y ago

To be clear, I wouldn't carry 160 lbs of gasoline with me, but I've absolutely done drives where I've stopped for gas twice and been driving >99% of the time, which electric cars can't do.