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I'm not the GP, but I've driven a lot through western Europe, including Germany. There's two break patterns when driving a gasoline powered vehicle that I'd rea

by avar 3y ago

I'm not the GP, but I've driven a lot through western Europe, including Germany. There's two break patterns when driving a gasoline powered vehicle that I'd really miss if I had an EV: 1) More frequent but short breaks, e.g. literally a 3-4 minute break every hour. Just enough to fill up the tank, for someone to run into the bathroom etc. 2) If doing a long break (e.g. lunch with the family) do a 2-3 minute stop at a gas station before orafter, but for the stop itself drive 5-10 minutes off the main road to unwind somewhere for an hour on more. E.g. I was recently driving through the Rheine valley, and had lunch with this view, which is a 10 minute drive from the closest gas station: https://goo.gl/maps/VVXTWQDkc2F48UHe8 https://goo.gl/maps/VVXTWQDkc2F48UHe8 If I had an EV I'd have been stuck with the family in some uninviting car park at that gas station instead, and instead of a nice lunch having to pick through overpriced gas station fast food options.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
I totally understand your #2. My long drives are across Canada, and between Ottawa and Winnipeg (2200km) it's all relatively unpopulated Canadian Shield so it's rare to find a stop that isn't well treed. Most of the superchargers on the route are in "towns" with populations of about 10 and pleasant environments. Re #1: I find that those types of stops happen at the beginning of trips. If you're only an hour or two into your trip when you need to grab gasoline, you grab it quick. But with an EV you should be charging at home or at your hotel overnight, so you start out with a full battery and don't need a charge until about 4 hours in. Once you're 4 hours into a driving day, you want to stop for more than 3 minutes.
- avar 3y ago
  Yeah, it definitely depends on the country. For western Europe in general the reason to stop at a highway gas station is because you're looking to go-go-go. If you're willing to do a 10-15 minute detour off the highway there's almost always both cheaper gas, and a much more pleasant place to stop. With that in mind I think we've been optimizing the charging infrastructure in Europe for something that worked well in North America. Since you are going to need a bit of a longer stop I'd think it would be equally if not more important to ensure that there's fast chargers at every restaurant & attraction that's a short drive from the highway, rather than blindly copying what works for gasoline powered vehicles. Re #1: I didn't mean to do short pit stops because you need to, but, and particularly with kids of a certain age, getting them out of the car to walk around for 5 minutes every hour might work much better than a similar 15 minute break every 3 hours, etc. Which is still a big advantage of combustion, since fueling itself takes 1-2 minutes you can more easily pick which stop is the rarer longer stop.
LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
It's either Rhine or Rhein. The town of Rheine is not near the Rhine at all, nor in some valley to speak of. It's all rather flat, with only some small hills here and there ;-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheine

by avar 3y ago

bryanlarsen 3y ago

I totally understand your #2. My long drives are across Canada, and between Ottawa and Winnipeg (2200km) it's all relatively unpopulated Canadian Shield so it's rare to find a stop that isn't well treed. Most of the superchargers on the route are in "towns" with populations of about 10 and pleasant environments. Re #1: I find that those types of stops happen at the beginning of trips. If you're only an hour or two into your trip when you need to grab gasoline, you grab it quick. But with an EV you should be charging at home or at your hotel overnight, so you start out with a full battery and don't need a charge until about 4 hours in. Once you're 4 hours into a driving day, you want to stop for more than 3 minutes.

avar 3y ago
Yeah, it definitely depends on the country. For western Europe in general the reason to stop at a highway gas station is because you're looking to go-go-go. If you're willing to do a 10-15 minute detour off the highway there's almost always both cheaper gas, and a much more pleasant place to stop. With that in mind I think we've been optimizing the charging infrastructure in Europe for something that worked well in North America. Since you are going to need a bit of a longer stop I'd think it would be equally if not more important to ensure that there's fast chargers at every restaurant & attraction that's a short drive from the highway, rather than blindly copying what works for gasoline powered vehicles. Re #1: I didn't mean to do short pit stops because you need to, but, and particularly with kids of a certain age, getting them out of the car to walk around for 5 minutes every hour might work much better than a similar 15 minute break every 3 hours, etc. Which is still a big advantage of combustion, since fueling itself takes 1-2 minutes you can more easily pick which stop is the rarer longer stop.

LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago

It's either Rhine or Rhein. The town of Rheine is not near the Rhine at all, nor in some valley to speak of. It's all rather flat, with only some small hills here and there ;-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheine