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Cars have been running out of gas for 100 years, give or take. To refill an electric car you can usually just pull it with a tow rope for a few miles to recharg

Cars have been running out of gas for 100 years, give or take. To refill an electric car you can usually just pull it with a tow rope for a few miles to recharge. Doesn’t really seem like a seismic shift in paradigm to be honest. Certainly not to justify a different level of range anxiety than a gas car running a bit low.

cuu508 3y ago
Hos much usable range do you get after pulling for a few miles?
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Likely something less than a few miles.
- pseudosavant 3y ago
  It depends on the regen capabilities of the car. My Bolt can regen at 70kw in Low (the one pedal driving mode). With a 60 kw battery that is about 2% of the battery per minute. Or 1.2kw/minute and I get 3.7 mi/km, so about 4.3 miles of range a minute.
  - cuu508 3y ago
    Have you by any chance tested regen by towing? I'm assuming regen is designed to be used for short periods when slowing down, I wonder how long it can be used continuously. Also, what would be the requirements for the towing vehicle? 70 kW of extra load is no joke, and car engines are generally not designed to handle heavy loads for extended periods of time.
    - pseudosavant 3y ago
      The EV can handle it for a long time. I've never towed a vehicle like this, but I've gone down very steep mountains with nothing but heavy regen for over 45 minutes. Some vehicles could maybe handle towing an extra 70kw (~100hp). You could always use a lesser regen level more suitable to the towing vehicle too.
bluGill 3y ago
Sure, but with a gas car the typical response is to hitch a ride to the nearest gas station (which along any highway won't be that far unlike EV chargers), buy a small gas can, fill it up, and hitch a ride back. Sometimes gas stations even have a gas can you can borrow for free so your only extra cost is the time. Once in a while a nice person will even have extra gas in their truck they will just give you for free. A tow truck by contrast will cost you $100 to get you to a gas station. Tow trucks are great services if the problem is more than out of gas (and some of them will bring gas for less, but you still pay for the service), but there are not what most people use when out of gas.
sandworm101 3y ago
>> Doesn’t really seem like a seismic shift in paradigm to be honest. It really does, at least for those not living in big cities. It isn't even really about the range. It is about the limited availability of charging infrastructure, and I don't mean charge points. I mean that any gas-powered car can be "recharged" at the roadside. Someone can give you some gas. That isn't a thing for electric cars. If a town must evacuate, a thing that does happen, you will want the ICEs vehicles that can be refueled quickly and easily in less-than-ideal conditions. A few years ago Fort McMurray Canada had to evacuate ahead of a wildfire. 80,000 people on the road in maybe 30,000 vehicles. The nearest town was over a hundred miles away, the nearest safe place maybe a hundred more. There were trucks handing out gas/diesel along the evac route to keep people moving. Such an impromptu evacuation would not have been possible using EVs. Evac situations also tend to coincide with loss of grid power (fires/hurricanes/flooding) which only further complicates the problem. Lots of people in small towns keep extra gas at home, or at least know how to syphon gas quickly between vehicles. EVs cannot do such tings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_wildfire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_wildfire.
- bsder 3y ago
  > Such an impromptu evacuation would not have been possible using EVs. This is, in fact, precisely backward. A fully charged EV will stomp all over a fully gassed ICE in a stop and go evacuation situation. EVs don't have to idle. So, unlike older combustion engines, they don't use energy unless moving, and they recover most of the same energy when braking. At very low speeds, EVs stomp all over combustion engines. You don't need to refuel people because the EV isn't running out of gas from idling in stopped traffic. More modern combustion engines turn themselves off. But, even that has its limits as you can't recover the start stop energy like an EV can.
- CraigJPerry 3y ago
  This seems an absurd take but the absurdity is all in one direction - you can go the other way and maybe find reason again somewhere in the middle: >> It is about the limited availability of charging infrastructure You begin most days at home, do you need more than the charging infra? You start each day with the ability to drive 2-4 hours. Are you planning to spend more time driving most days? An EV sat at home has 80% range. You don’t leave them fully charged usually, for the sake of battery longevity but you absolutely want any excess solar in your remote property being added to your EV rather than sent back to the grid. That may be more range than the gas car sat next to it on an idle Tuesday when an emergency hits. Who keeps a gas car fully topped up at all times? With an ev in a remote location, you start every day with 80%. That gas car you meant to fill up when you were next in town? Good luck because: >> Evac situations also tend to coincide with loss of grid power (fires/hurricanes/flooding) This means the gas pumps are off. They use electricity, plus the staff are evacuating anyway. Need to cross a now flooded road? You might have to hitch a ride across in an EV, your gas cars intake might be too low and end up with the engine hydro-locked.

cuu508 3y ago

Hos much usable range do you get after pulling for a few miles?

sandworm101 3y ago
Likely something less than a few miles.
pseudosavant 3y ago
It depends on the regen capabilities of the car. My Bolt can regen at 70kw in Low (the one pedal driving mode). With a 60 kw battery that is about 2% of the battery per minute. Or 1.2kw/minute and I get 3.7 mi/km, so about 4.3 miles of range a minute.
- cuu508 3y ago
  Have you by any chance tested regen by towing? I'm assuming regen is designed to be used for short periods when slowing down, I wonder how long it can be used continuously. Also, what would be the requirements for the towing vehicle? 70 kW of extra load is no joke, and car engines are generally not designed to handle heavy loads for extended periods of time.
  - pseudosavant 3y ago
    The EV can handle it for a long time. I've never towed a vehicle like this, but I've gone down very steep mountains with nothing but heavy regen for over 45 minutes. Some vehicles could maybe handle towing an extra 70kw (~100hp). You could always use a lesser regen level more suitable to the towing vehicle too.

bluGill 3y ago

Sure, but with a gas car the typical response is to hitch a ride to the nearest gas station (which along any highway won't be that far unlike EV chargers), buy a small gas can, fill it up, and hitch a ride back. Sometimes gas stations even have a gas can you can borrow for free so your only extra cost is the time. Once in a while a nice person will even have extra gas in their truck they will just give you for free. A tow truck by contrast will cost you $100 to get you to a gas station. Tow trucks are great services if the problem is more than out of gas (and some of them will bring gas for less, but you still pay for the service), but there are not what most people use when out of gas.

sandworm101 3y ago

>> Doesn’t really seem like a seismic shift in paradigm to be honest. It really does, at least for those not living in big cities. It isn't even really about the range. It is about the limited availability of charging infrastructure, and I don't mean charge points. I mean that any gas-powered car can be "recharged" at the roadside. Someone can give you some gas. That isn't a thing for electric cars. If a town must evacuate, a thing that does happen, you will want the ICEs vehicles that can be refueled quickly and easily in less-than-ideal conditions. A few years ago Fort McMurray Canada had to evacuate ahead of a wildfire. 80,000 people on the road in maybe 30,000 vehicles. The nearest town was over a hundred miles away, the nearest safe place maybe a hundred more. There were trucks handing out gas/diesel along the evac route to keep people moving. Such an impromptu evacuation would not have been possible using EVs. Evac situations also tend to coincide with loss of grid power (fires/hurricanes/flooding) which only further complicates the problem. Lots of people in small towns keep extra gas at home, or at least know how to syphon gas quickly between vehicles. EVs cannot do such tings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_wildfire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_wildfire.

bsder 3y ago
> Such an impromptu evacuation would not have been possible using EVs. This is, in fact, precisely backward. A fully charged EV will stomp all over a fully gassed ICE in a stop and go evacuation situation. EVs don't have to idle. So, unlike older combustion engines, they don't use energy unless moving, and they recover most of the same energy when braking. At very low speeds, EVs stomp all over combustion engines. You don't need to refuel people because the EV isn't running out of gas from idling in stopped traffic. More modern combustion engines turn themselves off. But, even that has its limits as you can't recover the start stop energy like an EV can.
CraigJPerry 3y ago
This seems an absurd take but the absurdity is all in one direction - you can go the other way and maybe find reason again somewhere in the middle: >> It is about the limited availability of charging infrastructure You begin most days at home, do you need more than the charging infra? You start each day with the ability to drive 2-4 hours. Are you planning to spend more time driving most days? An EV sat at home has 80% range. You don’t leave them fully charged usually, for the sake of battery longevity but you absolutely want any excess solar in your remote property being added to your EV rather than sent back to the grid. That may be more range than the gas car sat next to it on an idle Tuesday when an emergency hits. Who keeps a gas car fully topped up at all times? With an ev in a remote location, you start every day with 80%. That gas car you meant to fill up when you were next in town? Good luck because: >> Evac situations also tend to coincide with loss of grid power (fires/hurricanes/flooding) This means the gas pumps are off. They use electricity, plus the staff are evacuating anyway. Need to cross a now flooded road? You might have to hitch a ride across in an EV, your gas cars intake might be too low and end up with the engine hydro-locked.