76 ms·

The article talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect or ill-founded: > Niedermeyer said that while an electric car can meet most people's driv

• camel_gopher 3y ago
  Sounds like the use case is perfect for a hybrid which does 30 miles electric.
  • neogodless 3y ago
    I think that's why the article suggests exactly that.
  • krallja 3y ago
    Love my 38-mile summer / 31-mile winter PHEV for exactly this reason. I’ve bought maybe a dozen tanks of gas over the past two years.
  • bsder 3y ago
    It was called the Chevy Volt. GM discontinued making them because the Bolt is sooooo much cheaper to produce. Everybody knows that hybrids are a stopgap and will go obsolete. Consequently, there is negative motivation to produce hybrids. The problem is that nobody knows when hybrids will go obsolete. If you recommend manufacturing them and they go obsolete during your corporate political tenure, you're screwed. Govenments need to start subsidizing charging stations just like they subsidized filling stations along interstates and turnpikes. That way we can just make the jump to pure electrics.
    • wlesieutre 3y ago
      Have you seen the new Prius Prime? I’d probably take that over a Volt. I wanted to test drive one but when I was car shopping last year they were selling used for thousands over MSRP.
    • StillBored 3y ago
      Govenments need to start subsidizing charging stations just like they subsidized filling stations along interstates and turnpikes. 100% no, this is one of the problems I have with the recent climate legislation in the USA. This is the equivalent of taking more money out of the pockets of the middle class and giving it to the top 10%, same as the subsidies on electric vehicles which cost > $75K. It does close to nothing to actually encourage people to buy electric vehicles. The charger situation will solve itself once enough people have electric cars, because there will be demand for the service. Right now at least in the US, the model is just throwing money at gas stations and other commercial interests to go against their economic interests. Either the chargers have sufficient demand or it is a giant waste of money. So, if you want to encourage people to actually buy electric vehicles a better plan is to make it so inexpensive to charge them with actual carbon free energy that they cost less to own and operate. AKA spend the money on making the power grid provide cheaper power, and the charger problem will solve itself as people compare the price of a new electric vehicle vs a gas one. I still believe in the dream from the 1960's that started with the catch phrase "electric too cheap to meter". And given the state of the US economy (and may other energy driven markets) it would actually have even farther reaching positive economic impacts beyond convincing people to buy electric cars. Ex: many fundamental industries run away from expensive energy. Its also why the global economy tanks when oil prices spike, or countries go into recession when their energy rates go above their neighbors.
    • standardUser 3y ago
      Biden got $7.5 billion for exactly that in the US, but construction has been slow to start.
  • RHSeeger 3y ago
    We looked at getting a hybrid this past fall when buying a car, but couldn't find one that suited our needs. We didn't even look at an EV, because of the range issue (our relatives all live 2+ hours away, visits to them are frequent, and we can't charge it where they live).
    • NewJazz 3y ago
      Your relatives don't allow you to charge your car where they live?
      • wharvle 3y ago
        Electric drier plugs aren’t always conveniently located (and some won’t have any—apartments and certain types of assisted-living sorts of situations might not). Normal outlets take forever to charge. Days from, say, 20% charge to get to full. Better not be using it for any other driving while you visit. May have to kick one of their cars out of a garage, in either case, to reach any outlet. Some people really hate having their car outside.
        • Rebelgecko 3y ago
          Dunno how long your trips are, but if you're staying 2-3 days an L1 charger should do the job even if you drive around town a bit while you're there. I also keep an extension cord in my car, which works well for running under garage doors.
          • RHSeeger 3y ago
            Generally, we're driving out, hanging out for a couple hours to have a meal, and driving back. There's no garage to plug the car in; the car area is about 100 feet from the house. Overall, it's just not realistic to plug a car in while visiting them.
      • scaryclam 3y ago
        If you came to visit me, you couldn't charge your car where I live. I don't have private parking, and the places you can park near me do not have any access to a plug socket. Not everyone is lucky enough to have appropriate infrastructure around them.
  • GnarfGnarf 3y ago
    The hybrids are still saddled with all the reasons to ditch ICE and go EV: pistons, spark plugs, crankshaft, fuel pump, oil pan & pump, radiator, water pump, distributor, valves, timing belt, fuel injection, transmission, god it's a miracle that stuff ever worked :o)
• throwitaway222 3y ago
  This. I'm not sure why plugin hybrids are not a thing.... actually, I don't even want a plugin "hybrid" I want an EV that never uses the ICE unless you run out of power, then it's just an ICE vehicle entirely... In other words I want something they will never build.
  • reverius42 3y ago
    That’s exactly what a plug in hybrid is, and lots of manufacturers make them today. Check out any Toyota model with “Prime” in the name.
    • bombcar 3y ago
      The Prime refers to the premium you’ll pay for them, sadly. Many good options abound, but they’re all $10-15k more than the basic guzzler. And $15k is a lot of fuel.
  • drfuchs 3y ago
    Well, the discontinued Chevy Volt is just that: 50ish miles on electrons from the plug-in battery; only then a few hundred on a tank of gas via the ICE. So, no range anxiety, and you can likely commute on battery alone. Can’t imagine why they didn’t sell well; I like mine fine, and find I do only about 20% of my travel in gas-mode.
    • ireflect 3y ago
      And they are relatively cheap on the used market. The Volt is still awesome. I'm considering upgrading our 2017 to a 2019 (the last year they made it). But at 130,000kms ours is still getting 100km per charge in summer (70km in winter). Ours is a family car and we do less than 10% in gas mode.
  • toast0 3y ago
    Plugin hybrids are a thing. They're designed as a system though, so a vehicle that works as you describe would need to have more power in both systems in order to run from either one independently. And that means more weight and worse efficiency. EV and ICE have great synergy if you use them together. EV offers amazing acceleration from zero, and relatively less amazing acceleration at highway speed. ICE has better acceleration when you're already moving. ICE efficiency is poor at low speeds, and better at high speeds, and EV is opposite. ICE can warm up the interior of the vehicle at no extra charge. If the engine is idling to warm up (itself or the occupants), might as well charge the batteries. If the battery has enough charge, it can easily start the engine when needed, so you don't need to idle unless warming is needed... And EV is always ready so you don't have the delay to go that some auto start/stop systems have. Anyway, at least in my PHEV, it had a 'EV only' mode you can use if you charge it, that operates close to what you suggest. It does run the engine a bit here and there for 'normal operations' and will try to cycle through the gas tank over several months to make sure the gas doesn't go stale. But if it's in EV only mode, acceleration from say 40 mph to 65 mph is poor, and the battery drains quick at 65 mph vs 30 mph ish or stop and go. Significant uphill eats the battery too. The one I drive is also very much a compromise vehicle, the extra battery for PHEV doesn't have a good place to go, so the trunk space is poor. There's probably ways to design a car to be PHEV first and find better places for the battery, but most/all? PHEVs I've seen are designed hybrid or ICE only first and then stuff extra batteries in storage areas.
• iknowstuff 3y ago
  The bigger strawman is that range is the biggest consideration. ~300 miles is plenty when charging takes 15min. Especially given that most charging happens at home, saving time vs going to a gas station every week.
  • gttalbot 3y ago
    This.
  • zdragnar 3y ago
    It's great when you have a charger capable of charging in 15 minutes. Right now, that isn't reality for a lot of people. Chargers either aren't maintained properly, or wait times to get to a charger are horrendous. > Especially given that most charging happens at home, saving time vs going to a gas station every week. That's ignoring the parent post's point. The usual commute isn't what's causing range anxiety. Some day, I'll own an EV myself, but it isn't likely to be soon.
    • masto 3y ago
      The reason EV owners keep pushing back against this argument is that the experience of owning one often (obviously not always) leads to a massive recalibration of what you thought you cared about. Road trips was something that was I was worried about when making the purchase in 2018, and it turned out to be a complete non-issue. In all that time, I have waited for a charger exactly once, for under 5 minutes, because we decided to stop at a busy outlet mall. During road trips, I'm not going to argue that we don't spend more time charging than we would stopping for gas, but it's not enough to bother me or my family, and if we include getting snacks or a bathroom break, the car is ready to go before we are. It is wildly offset by the convenience of never having to fill up the car outside of those occasional road trips. People in the comments are talking about gas cars as the ones where you just get in and go without having to think about it -- there's very much a mirror image of that situation with an EV. When I had a gas car, fueling it was a constant chore. I had to think about it orders of magnitude more often. It simply doesn't come up with our EV. Every time it leaves the house, it does so with hundreds of miles of range. The idea of getting another car where I have to watch the gas gauge is almost reason enough that I'm going to stick with electric forever. It is absolutely true that my experience is highly dependent on where I live, the kind of use I have for a car, the places I go, resources available to me, and just dumb luck. Others' mileage, literally, may vary. I'm not trying to sell you on this. It's just really easy to overestimate the importance of EV range.
• pxeboot 3y ago
  My next car will be an EV. I have no concern about the advertised range. The real worry is what the range will look like in 5-10 years when it is cold out.
  • hansvm 3y ago
    That's new to me. I thought cold only impacted peak power, not total energy.
    • nostrademons 3y ago
      Apparently people are noticing very steep drop-offs in observed range based on temperature, eg. a Mazda CX-90 (26 mile rated range, and gets it pretty consistently at 70F) can only go around 12 miles at 40F. https://old.reddit.com/r/MazdaCX90/comments/18ib2cz/battery_range_is_only_12_miles_fully_charged/ https://old.reddit.com/r/MazdaCX90/comments/18ib2cz/battery_... A big component of it is heater use. In an ICE vehicle, you heat the car with waste heat that is going to be lost anyway. In an EV, you heat the car with energy from the battery. Heating takes up way more energy than most people realize.
      • darknavi 3y ago
        It's been a pretty cool area to see innovation in. Newer Teslas (Model Y at least) have a really complex heat pump system that really helps reduce range loss dude to cold weather.
      • Yhippa 3y ago
        That is a shame. I was looking at that SUV and 40F isn't too terribly cold around where I live. That stinks that it over halves the range of the PHEV.
        • sitkack 3y ago
          It depends on vehicle.
    • jader201 3y ago
• lukas099 3y ago
  People focus too much on edge cases when making life decisions, imo. > We need a dining room for when we have parties (has a party once every 2 years; room sits empty 99% of the time) > We need a guest bedroom (guests could stay at the hotel down the street) > I need a pickup truck (driver is an accountant who maybe picks up a couple bags of mulch from Lowes twice a year) I'm glad I live in a prosperous society where this is possible and all, but it's kind of annoying.
  • kbrackbill 3y ago
    I think what makes it hard to be realistic about these things is that they're all aspirational. People want to be the kind of people who have parties, have guests often, do big projects that need a truck. Admitting to yourself that you don't need these things is admitting that you're not living up to the ideal in your head.
    • jamestimmins 3y ago
      This is also one of the main promises of consumerism - that we can buy the life we want. If I have the right space, I'll become the kind of person who has parties. If I buy a truck, I'll want to do big projects.
      • chii 3y ago
        > main promises of consumerism not consumerism, but advertising. Specifically, brand advertising (rather than informational advertising like walmart putting low prices in ads)
      • Spivak 3y ago
        This take is overly cynical. Burying a house with a nice entertaining space or a good set of tools is about reducing the friction of doing the things you want. Owning a treadmill and walking to the other room is way easier than going to gym after work when you're tired. It's far far easier to throw a party when it just means inviting people over and making or ordering food than renting an entertaining space. It's easier to work on a project when you have the tools in your garage than if you had to go to the hardware store or go rent a u haul. For all the talk of rampant consumerism the stuff on the bottom of my list of things to complain about are purchases intended to reduce your reliance on buying things. Owning nothing, making nothing, and renting other people's stuff and labor for every task is peak consumerist behavior disguised as "efficient" "minimal" living.
• neogodless 3y ago
  I think the article does speak towards this somewhat. For example: > The focus on increasing EVs' range is contributing to their relatively high prices. Unlike with gas cars, the more you pay for an EV, the more range you can expect to receive. That's partially true. The most fuel efficient vehicles have traditionally been the cheapest cars, those given small engines and the least amount of heavy noise dampening and luxury items. But it's not always true that paying more for an EV will get you more range. $70-90k for a F150 Lightning will get you less range than a smaller, less expensive Hyundai Ioniq 6. Within classes / makes, though, it's generally true that you pay more for more range, which is a flip from ICE. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/longest-range-evs-2023/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/longest-range-evs-2023/ > EVs can be an important part of the fight against the climate crisis, but America's EV plan needs to lean into what these cars do well: short daily trips that can be taken in small, affordable cars. People who frequently take long trips can take advantage of hybrid cars. Hybrids by themselves already make a good deal of sense. While some may argue that the complexity could reduce reliability, the Prius has actually been one of the most reliable vehicles you can buy. Maybe your daily driver does not need to be your "everything for every situation" vehicle. But this is an old argument we'll likely never win against the American car buying public. SUVs (and increasingly large ones) already do almost everything you could ever need, even if the vast majority of the time, all they do is move a single person around. And the same can be said for those huge 4 door trucks (with small beds).
• protocolture 3y ago
  Yep. I have a Diesel. My average trip length will be roughly 60km. However, 4 - 8 times a year I need to go much further. Last year a single round trip for work was roughly 2200 km. And that was through extreme rural environments. The vast majority of places I stopped to refill the vehicle did not have electric service. Average trips being serviceable doesnt help me. I dont buy a vehicle assuming it will work on average, I buy a vehicle knowing in will serve every one of my use cases.
  • iknowstuff 3y ago
    Could you share an example of such a trip? Let's toss it into ABRP
    • worthless-trash 3y ago
      Not OP, but for example. From Brisbane, Queensland to Daintree Queensland and back. I do this trip once or twice a year.
      • judge2020 3y ago
        There is a general drought of Tesla SCs in Queensland / NE Australia, so ABRP can't find a suitable route only using the SC network. Otherwise a scenario for the Lucid Air Dream Edition has it charging 6 times for a total of 4h12m (in "great" conditions, though; I can't change the car's consumption mi/wh on the desktop site): https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=c34a381b-83fc-4bd5-a6d9-2dd86fffc60c https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=c34a381b-83fc-4bd... - but of course this is one of the most expensive and longest range EVs available today.
        • zamfi 3y ago
          You could also do this drive in a Tesla M3LR and charging adapters, but you’d be spending a lot of time at chargers either way…
          • 3y ago
• tw04 3y ago
  I’d argue most families have two cars though. So you get one EV and keep the ICE until the charging infrastructure is where it needs to be. Another alternative is to just rent a car for that long road trip which I’ve done in the past. That being said, I think far more people worry about daily mileage than you think. People think in terms of time spent driving, not distance. They tend to assume every hour is 60 miles and reality is for most it’s nowhere near that. I’ve had my wife lose her mind that the car is warning about range with 25 miles remaining and she’s 6 miles from home. Humans tend to be REALLY bad about estimating the distance of something but really good about estimating time. If someone were to ask you how far your office is from the airport, I bet you’d respond with how long it takes to get there, not how many miles it is away.
  • FalconSensei 3y ago
    > If someone were to ask you how far your office is from the airport, I bet you’d respond with how long it takes to get there, not how many miles it is away. To be fair, in this case, time makes way more sense. I need to know when to leave to get there in time for my flight, and I don't care about the actual distance.
    • chii 3y ago
      And this is only because modern tech has made distance a moot point - we can travel _any_ distance these days, up to the moon (it's all a matter of just cost). But EV's have upended that - distance matters with EV.
    • cozzyd 3y ago
      the time can vary by a factor of 2-3 depending on traffic and travel mode, but the distance does not...
      • standardUser 3y ago
        Google Maps solved this problem a while ago.
      • maccard 3y ago
• Swizec 3y ago
  > 93% of trips are less than 30 miles, but the vast majority of drivers take occasional trips that are beyond the range of an electric car I live in a dense city and don’t own a car. For most of my regular trips, a bicycle is faster and more convenient than a car. Any time we do rent a car, it’s for trips longer than 100mi. Weekend trips and such. An EV absolutely does not fit our usecase. We tried renting a Tesla once and it was … not great. Yes we’re probably and edge case. But there’s lots of people living in dense cities. That’s why they’re dense.
  • crznp 3y ago
    As someone who lives in a fairly spread-out city, I still prefer bikes and public transit. Or skip the commute entirely and work from home. I know that isn't true for everyone, but for me the edge cases are the only case for having a car at all.
    • Doctor_Fegg 3y ago
      Same situation and I live in a rural town (population 3000). The key is that we deliberately chose a town with good public transport.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • robertlagrant 3y ago
    > But there’s lots of people living in dense cities. That’s why they’re dense. Well, some populous cities sprawl, especially if they were built a little more recently.
• simplyluke 3y ago
  “Never cross a river that is on average 4 feet deep” comes to mind here, to borrow from Taleb. Most people I know take annual or more frequent road trips for travel, sport, or to visit family in neighboring states. These aren’t edge cases, they’re normal and predictable parts of peoples lives.
  • darknavi 3y ago
    EV driver here who takes many road trips a year in them, so my hobbiest enthusiasm certainly guides my thinking. How impractical is renting a car for a once a year trip? EVs have a lot of upsides in terms of never going to a gas station and having less maintenance.
    • bombcar 3y ago
      Depends on many factors. I’ve lived where I could grab an SUV from the rental shop down the street anytime I wanted, and I’ve lived where the drive to the rental shop would almost exhaust some EVs.
    • whelp_24 3y ago
      Renting a car is expensive, especially when you have a car already. That you are paying full price for.
      • viraptor 3y ago
        But is it still expensive compared to the situation where you're buying fuel for the ICE instead? For many places, the saving on the fuel costs will more than offset the occasional trip. It's kind of similar to why we got rid of the second car. Sure, it's useful, but for all the extra costs, I can take multiple taxi trips a year. (I barely do 1 in practice)
        • whelp_24 3y ago
          I mean it really depends. There are probably some circumstances where it's cheaper. But I think it's not a forgone conclusion. Renting costs money, and you'll need gas for it too. Motortrends estimates 1300 to 2000 a year in fuel for an Accord. And 400-1200 for electricity in a tesla model 3 (charging at home not a supercharger). I can easily imagine eating up the savings in one or two rental trips, and that's certainly less convenient.
• teeray 3y ago
  > The argument is a clear strawman; it's playing down what people have genuine concerns with and focusing on the range aspect that's obviously unimportant It’s not a strawman if suddenly it costs hundreds more to rent a car to go visit the grandparents for the holidays. That doesn’t scale either because everyone will want a long range vehicle for holiday travel, making costs for them soar and availability drop.
  • calvinmorrison 3y ago
    The whole line of questioning reeks of "I am smarter and know more about your use cases than you do. And if you don't listen to me, you are stupid or wrong objectively". My car is 40+ years old. If I rented a car every 300 mile trip I would need to be rich. Gas is relatively inelastic cost so a old reliable can be really cheap to keep around
• jandrewrogers 3y ago
  It is even worse for people like me, despite having a charger in my home. I almost never drive short distances, I walk everywhere locally. When I do drive, it is very long distances, and in those cases range and refill time counts for a lot. On their best days EVs have inferior range and in many conditions they have markedly inferior range. Add on top of that the lengthy recharge time (topping off a gas tank is <5 minutes) and it fundamentally changes the logistics of long distance travel in a negative way. I have nothing against the idea of EVs, they are just really inferior for many common driving patterns in the US. Not everyone does 100% of their driving in the suburbs or has the ability to charge at home. My minimum buying criteria for an EV is simple: high ground clearance, all-wheel drive, and 650+km range with a car full of people and luggage in freezing temperatures. Trivial to buy in a gas car for not much money and essential for many people in the US. We will know EVs have arrived when Americans in the mountain west start trading their Subarus for Teslas.
  • toomuchtodo 3y ago
    > We will know EVs have arrived when Americans in the mountain west start trading their Subarus for Teslas. No need to get the laggards onboard, you simply need to get to the inflection point where the petroleum supply chain is no longer sustainable (due to demand falling through minimum economic viable throughput). Still at least 10-15 years out, as the US accounts for ~35% global oil consumption. US EV uptake is still too early to see where the weakness is from well to pump, but those Achilles heels will appear eventually. Some consumers may not get the EV they want before they lose the gas stations nearby they have. Japan shows us the future in usual fashion: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/13/japanese-refineries-close-as-the-countrys-petroleum-consumption-falls/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/13/japanese-refineries-clo... ("Japanese Refineries Close As The Country’s Petroleum Consumption Falls") https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/how-electric-vehicles-are-accelerating-end-oil-age-2023-12-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/how-el... ("How electric vehicles are accelerating the end of the oil age")
    • jandrewrogers 3y ago
      That point is so far in the future that I don’t need to consider it. The US is not going to abandon their massive agricultural infrastructure because EVs. As long as significant parts of the US are not readily navigable by EVs 12 months out of the year, and that looks to remain the case for quite some time, there will be plenty of petrol. I am sure that in 2050 the EVs will be far superior to what we have today. But then again, so will AI etc and most of these discussions may be moot. I don’t understand what people expect to gain by antagonizing people that cannot drive an EV. It trains them to ignore or oppose the same people on useful climate mitigations that have nothing to do with EVs.
• beaned 3y ago
  > 93% of trips are less than 30 miles, but the vast majority of drivers take occasional trips But they still take these occasional trips, and getting there in an expected way is important to people. So I think the relevant statistic is not what % of trips are short, but what % of owners take a trip that may induce range anxiety once every few years or more? If I knew I had a big road trip planned for two years from now it'd still affect my choice for a new car today, if I felt that I might be limited by range.
• AlexandrB 3y ago
  This is the one good idea the Cybertruck has, in my opinion - the expandable battery[1]. If EV powertrains were standardized to the point where you could rent a battery pack to extend your range for these kinds of longer trips I think there would be a lot less anxiety about EV range. [1] https://electrek.co/2023/12/04/cybertruck-range-extender-option-is-just-the-beginning/ https://electrek.co/2023/12/04/cybertruck-range-extender-opt...
  • perryizgr8 3y ago
    $16000 for something that can be done with a couple of $20 petrol cans in any other car. Wow innovation!
• fny 3y ago
  Forget range, you can’t even reliably charge non-Tesla EVs without having to drive 20 min to find a working charging station. This is a problem I’ve had in a densely populated NY suburb when I was given an electric Genesis as a loaner car. The car was incredible to drive, and I was sold on the idea that my next vehicle would be an EV until I had 3 miles of charge left after leaving my fourth broken charging station.
  • NewJazz 3y ago
    Luckily Tesla is opening up their stations very soon.
  • yitchelle 3y ago
    Can roadside assist help if your batteries are exhausted?
• mc32 3y ago
  I think at this time for your average Joe and Jane their best bet right now is a plug-in hybrid. It takes care of the short trips and the long trips too, also more affordable.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• kmeisthax 3y ago
  The last time I bought a car, this was the reason why I picked gas - I figured either the infrastructure for roadtripping would be there by then, or we'd have better range. Since then, I stopped doing as many roadtrips. Tesla also decided to open up its charger network and everyone is switching to NACS, so the infrastructure is way better. I'd say I'm ready for EVs now, except the car industry decided that electric vehicles inherently have to come with lots of anti-repair bullshit. The same kind that I already find disgusting in consumer electronics. So long as gas equals I own it and electric means I'm renting it, I'm not """buying""" an EV, even though they're otherwise great.
• jvanderbot 3y ago
  > However, experts are warning the growth rate in electric vehicle uptake isn’t strong enough, particularly with private car buyers, to reach the 22% target without greater incentives such as a cut in VAT on public charging and a more robust charging network Yeah - you need robust charging network to incentivize more uptick in electric cars. Everyone knows that. This is classic. We can't handle 100% of use cases yet, so we're doomed.
• davedx 3y ago
  I don’t get it. I own a Model 3 and I’ve done road trips from home (NL) to Paris and south Germany. Paris is especially easy with one single stop at a supercharger next to places to get food. If people would choose not to get an EV because of having to make one single stop then they’re idiots.
  • patryn20 3y ago
    Now imagine that distance being the distance to the next major city. And your family is 2 hours east of there. Welcome to Texas.
    • metabagel 3y ago
      As well, my perception is that Texas has been slow to install charging stations. I had a very difficult time finding an available charging station for a Mustang Mach-E rental car in San Antonio, and I ultimately returned it well below the level which they consider to be full - 70%, I believe. It was the holidays, but I suspect it would be painful any time of year.
    • davedx 3y ago
      Two supercharger stops. You'd probably need to make one gas stop in an ICE car for those kind of distances. Discussing the state of charging infrastructure is one thing. But if you have a Tesla then there are superchargers everywhere. The whole argument is FUD, usually propagated by people who don't own EV's or have some agenda. You can downvote me all you want, it doesn't win or lose the argument.
      • thaanpaa 3y ago
        Yeah, it never ceases to amaze me that the fact that you need an extra coffee break whenever you drive for more than 4-5 hours at a time is ostensibly such a huge inconvenience, but somehow the fact that you never need to go to a gas station at any other time doesn't matter. In the real world, I've never met an EV owner who didn't prefer it to a gas-guzzler, so I'm somewhat skeptical of the number of people on social media who claim to have returned theirs.
• s3p 3y ago
  I just hate this line: "Since Americans have been promised a one-to-one substitute for their gas cars" Who did this? Who promised every single American that they can replace their gas car with an EV and have the exact same utility in every single aspect of their life with it? The author is literally making up their own narrative as they go.
• hnthrowaway0328 3y ago
  My theory is that edge cases are the really important cases and that's why people give it a pretty large weight. Plus vehicles that burn gasoline are "old and boring" techs that many HN users do agree with.
• SkyPuncher 3y ago
  I almost bought an EV, but road trips became a blocker. I have family about 4 hours drive away. Outside of my town and my destination, there are 3 chargers that can charge an EV in a reasonable amount of time (less than 2 hours). They're all Electrify America, which are pretty unreliable. I'd have to stop at each and every one of them to ensure I could actually make the four hour drive. Unbelievably annoying.
  • Robotbeat 3y ago
    I'm surprised there are 3 Electrify America chargers but no Tesla Superchargers. Then again, a 300-400 mile Tesla can do the trip in one go (charge at your family's place).
    • SkyPuncher 3y ago
      There are Tesla chargers, but those don't help with my non-Tesla vehicle (at least when I was looking to purchase). We considered a Tesla, but it became a pain to even acquire one. Purchase would involve driving to another state.
      • Robotbeat 3y ago
        Ah, I see. Yeah, the non-tesla networks suck. Tesla is opening up now to other providers, so it shouldn't be an issue in the future, regardless of EV brand you want.
  • Rebelgecko 3y ago
    That's surprising, even when I've used EA chargers that were derated to ~50kW it's never taken me more than 30 minutes to charge. Usually more like 15 minutes. Fwiw I've found that the app is pretty reliable at saying when individual chargers at a station are down (although the status can be a bit misleading when there's cars waiting to charge)
• electrondood 3y ago
  I don't see how this is based in reality. You're running low on gas? You go find a node in the gas station network. Battery running down? Go find a Supercharger station. If you're in a Tesla, it will even route to these automatically. It will tell you in advance how many chargers are operational, and how many are occupied, and it will reroute to a less busy station if available.
  • jen20 3y ago
    And how long do you spend at it?
  • ralonso 3y ago
    Finding working-as-advertised chargers appears to be hard if not downright impossible. The situation does appear to be a little better if you own a Tesla, but if you own most any other make of EV you're going to have a bad time. From a hard requirement of a third-party app to pay, chargers using cables that do not meet spec, outright broken charging stations, issues with the apps themselves, and so on. Aging Wheels did an excellent video[1] on how frustrating the experience can be. [1] Aging Wheels - EV Road Trips Suck Now (Except in a Tesla) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8
• mmaunder 3y ago
  This is spot on. I do a ton of cross country driving and seeing people sitting in their car charging for an hour outside a diner in a gas-station-town off a highway is super common and makes the point. I talk to them. They rationalize it. But you can tell it sucks. We all want a cleaner planet and we need to be able to talk about how to solve the charge time problem without the hysterics and the bullshit.
  • tails4e 3y ago
    There is no need to charge for an hour today unless the car is first gen EV or the charger is not a fast charger. The fast charger roll out could be better, but it's expanding quote rapidly, only in the most rural places is it a major issue... That said I have seen cases where people add 30 mins of a diversion to a route to use a fast charger for 30 mins.
    • itsoktocry 3y ago
      >There is no need to charge for an hour today unless the car is first gen EV or the charger is not a fast charger. Do you live in a world where you're the only person using charging infrastructure and never have to wait in line?
      • jeremyw 3y ago
        Hmmm. I've charged publicly ~100 times on the Tesla network (mostly cross-country, but some long city stays) and I've had to wait briefly twice.
      • igrekel 3y ago
        I've had an EV since 2019 and did a few longer trips, including outside teh normal charging networks and I only had to wait fun line twice. It IS annoying when it happens, especially when I was in the middle of nowhere and the charger was being used by a pluggable hybrid
      • tails4e 3y ago
        I've never waited. 95% of my charging is at home. The other 5% is Tesla superchargers and have never waited. At most 90% of slots taken, so close, but never had to wait so far.
• elif 3y ago
  After taking an EV on a ~6500 mile road trip a couple months ago, I never want to road trip in a gas car ever again. Highlights: - by the 2.5-3.5 hour mark between charges, I'm ready for a 25-35 min break and its somewhere nice and not a gas station - stop anywhere and sleep with air conditioning for free - never have to use gas station bathroom - never have to calculate any routes or fuel stops - also no gas cars drive themselves as well as EVs can yet so driving fatigue is so much better There were times it felt like I was on my own private train where I got to set the route through national parks, scenic routes, etc and not deal with strangers.
  • Affric 3y ago
    You make it sound like a dream. Where were you road tripping?
    • elif 3y ago
      From Atlanta to Vegas to SF, up the coast to Washington, then back east though the middle of the country and back to Atlanta, going through Grand canyon, petrified forest, Yosemite, Shasta, redwood forest, Columbia River gorge, Yellowstone, Badlands, and car camping at some state parks on the way. I think it was 27 states total, 99.9% self driving and zero planning on my part.
      • elif 3y ago
        Oh, and only one hotel night on the way west, and another hotel night heading back east. The only reason we did that was for showers basically. (We stayed with friends in Oregon for a week)
  • Hugsun 3y ago
    Which bathrooms were you using instead? How much charge do you get on these breaks? I assume they aren't charging stations.
    • fnordpiglet 3y ago
• adrianN 3y ago
  Long trips in an EV are not impossible, they are just a little more hassle and take a bit longer because you need to take a route that has chargers. If you don't do these trips weekly, imo, the benefits of an EV outweigh these negatives.
• screye 3y ago
  I disagree. The sustainable alternative to EVs is hybrids, not gas guzzlers. Hybrids can be smaller, cheaper, lighter and gentler on the grid. Each of these matter. Heavier cars cause significantly higher road wear [1], particulate pollution [2] and occupy more space. EVs by necessity, are heavier. This is especially evident in America's favorite product categories : SUVs and Trucks. The Ford- F150 lightning is 1.5x heavier than its gas powered brother. Mazda is able to fit in a hybrid rotary [3] range-extender in the MX-30 REV, saving about 800 lbs from having a smaller battery. The rotary only serves as battery charger, so you get all the benefits of an EV and none of its negatives. Full-EVs are solving a problem that doesn't need solving. I respect them as a premium market segment option. But, massively subsidizing them with a 8000$ tax credit & virtue signaling makes no sense. The infrastructure is decades out from being there. There will be an eventual transition to EVs over the next 30 years as energy density and grid issues are solved. But, we should wait for it to happen organically. As of 2023, EVs are not the sustainable solution. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law [2] https://dynomight.net/tires/ https://dynomight.net/tires/ [3] Doritoes are back baybee.
  • SEJeff 3y ago
    Hybrids have the most maintenance and catch on fire more than 10x more than EVs. They are solving a problem that shouldn't be solved.
    • screye 3y ago
      Car fires aren't the a significant enough cause of car crash deaths to matter. Maintenance seems to be a manufacturer problem more so than a hybrid vs others problem. Toyota Priuses have been the beater Taxi of America for a good decade now. These hybrids are troopers. If Rivian and Tesla maintenance stories are any indication, Full-EVs seem to be an order of magnitude behind on dealing with problems during the ownership period.
      • sitkack 3y ago
        Maintenance has nothing to do with EV vs gas. I have a 2011 Nissan Leaf. Maintenance is keeping the tires inflated and changing the wiper blades. 50k miles and still on its first set of brake pads.
• zmgsabst 3y ago
  If you have 93% of your trips under 30mi, and have 1 trip per day, you have 25 over 30mi per year — or about 2 per months. 40mi per day indicates that’s probably 2 trips per day, hence 4 over 30mi per month. Worrying your car can’t go to the mountains and back to ski on the weekend (or whatever) seems valid — and why those 73% of people are concerned. Telling me I shouldn’t worry about having a weekend getaway because it’ll do me fine going to and from work is a loser sales pitch. As many here have pointed out.
• tshaddox 3y ago
  > The argument is a clear strawman; it's playing down what people have genuine concerns with and focusing on the range aspect that's obviously unimportant. The author is free to disagree about whether a particular consumer’s concerns are reasonable. If some particular consumer believes that an EV would have numerous significant benefits for their every day driving, but is concerned that a single weekend trip per year will take an hour longer with an EV due to charging, the author is free to have the opinion that this consumer is not weighing those benefits and costs in a reasonable way.
• morsecodist 3y ago
  The whole EV experience seems tailored to suburbia where people can keep their car near their home and drive frequently on short trips. Many of them have the EV as a second car to circumvent the road trip issue. I live in a mildly dense city and a lot of my neighborhood uses street parking. I almost never drive for short trips and a major reason I got a car at all is for longer more infrequent trips. I'd be happy to take a train instead but it is twice the price of flying and takes twice as long as driving. Instead of trains we'll get EVs and their infrastructure subsidized, no matter how much it ends up costing. It's not just direct subsidy. Some local ordinances now require buildings to provide chargers so people who don't drive will pay more in housing costs.
• justinl33 3y ago
  Completely agree with your point. I just find it ironic that I mainly hear this argument from people who just bought an EV and are trying to justify it. They'll say "and oh there's the range problem, but 93% of my trips are less than 30 miles anyways".
• paul7986 3y ago
  Range, time it takes to fuel my car at a station (3 minutes to pull up & pump n go) vs. time to charge an EV fully and gas station infrastructure (oodles & in ever nook & cranny in the US) vs. EV charger infrastructure (no way the same).
• atoav 3y ago
  Most people don't ride off the road, yet they get themselves rugged downhill bicycles with crazy big wheels in the city. Other people buy SUVs, in the city, where a smaller vehicle might have a ton of advantages. This is all in a certain sense irrational behaviour, but in another sense it is more about the feeling. People like to buy things that they can imagine them helping in all life situations. A car is not a small investment for many and if you have the choice between one that perfectly serves 95% of your trips and might suck at the rest and another that serves 100%, but the 95% are slightly worse/inefficient/expensive, that is a choice one can make. In certain circumstances it could even be the rational choice. E.g. if the charging infrastructure where you live isn't there.
  • flir 3y ago
    I once worked on a magazine for self-builders (building your own home). The readership was assumed to be entirely aspirational - that is, it wasn't written for self-builders at all, it was written for people who dreamed of being self-builders. A hell of a lot of youtube content fits in the same bucket, IMO. There's also conspicuous consumption/costly signalling to consider, when it comes to things that are on display like bikes, clothes, cars: in some respects, a car is a piece of jewellery.
• mrjin 3y ago
  They don't until they do.
• badgersnake 3y ago
  I live in a big city and don’t own a car because I can use public transport for the 93% and taxis for most of the rest. The weekend trip is indeed the problem and I rent an ICE car for that. It’s a pain, car rental companies are crap. If I can order a taxi to my house in 10 mins with an app, why do I have to trek across town and queue for 20 mins with a bunch of seemingly random paperwork to do that. Adds an hour to my trip both ways just doing car hire admin. And then there’s the ‘damage’ they invent when you return it.
  • agumonkey 3y ago
    Good point, and i'm genuinely surprised no SV VC tried to pull a Uber attack on rentals.
    • noirbot 3y ago
      Isn't that Turo?
      • agumonkey 3y ago
        ah well, i'm caught ignorant
        • noirbot 3y ago
          From what I hear from folks, it's actually a pretty nice service. I think it's mostly a way to rent really fancy/niche cars? I know friends who will get a Porsche or a Ferrari or something for a day when they're in a city with pretty places to go driving, or something more off-road when that's relevant. The sort of cars people are likely to have as a second car that they don't mind not having around for a couple days now and then.
• mlyle 3y ago
  > talks about range concerns as if they're simply incorrect I think the quote you highlighted explicitly mentions that they meet the daily range needs but "struggles with edge cases like road trips because of the need to recharge". > 93% of trips are less than 30 miles, but the vast majority of drivers take occasional trips that are beyond the range of an electric car. It's no wonder that 73% of drivers have range concerns-- no one is concerned with the EV getting through their commute, they're concerned with the EV getting them to their distant family / weekend trip / vacation home / etc. Yah, policymakers should push PHEVs harder as an interim strategy. They can be effectively electric cars most of the time but have the versatility to make road trips easier.
• WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
  Give me a decent public transportation grid for my day-to-day commute, and I will only use my car for where a train cannot take me. For obvious reasons, it will be an HEV or a PHEV. Well-planned and well-funded public transport will obviate the need for e-waste nut buckets with a range of wind-up toys.
• GuB-42 3y ago
  Furthermore this argument would favor plug-in hybrids, not fully electric cars. If only 30 miles is required most of the times, why go with these big, heavy, expensive batteries when you need only a quarter of it. Something like the Chevrolet Volt would be perfect, fully covering the 93% case with its smaller battery, but for the remaining 7%, the gas engine gives it a better range than any fully electric car. And for emissions, we are 93% there with a plug-in hybrid, so clearly that's the solution. Except, maybe not... because there is another trick in that stat. Maybe 93% of the trips are less than 30 miles, but 93% of the miles driven are necessarily part of a trip that is more than 30 miles. Same thing for that "40 miles a day", it doesn't account for days where no driving happens. So it means that it you take a random car on the road, there is a good chance it is doing a longer trip than 30-40 miles.
• fxd123 3y ago
  It's also missing the biggest point: no charger at home. I live in an apartment building, there are no chargers. I would be worried about my commute, since I would be driving to the other side of town for the rare public charger
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• assimpleaspossi 3y ago
  In two-car families, I don't see why this is an issue. Why not make sure the second car is a hybrid for any longer trips. I guess the only concern there is if one is already out and about in their EV and suddenly need to go further. But then that's what charging stations are for and, unless I'm wrong, one can charge up enough in 20 minutes.
• hippari2 3y ago
  Those 7% is ultimately what makes owning a car enjoyable. I have never heard anyone talks about how fun their commute is.
• niemandhier 3y ago
  My Skoda Enyaq has a range of around 350 km ( 100% -> 20% ), using a 300kv charger the car is fully charged pretty fast. I have traversed Germany in the north south axis quite comfortably. The thing can pull a trailer, max distance is less but I only need to go the local hardware store. I think those concerns overall are unfounded for most of us.
  • oblio 3y ago
    > My Skoda Enyaq has a range of around 350 km ( 100% -> 20% ) I'm actually curious about this. Say I where to drive with the AC on, 130kmph, outside temperature of -5C. What would you say the range is under these circumstances? Still 350km?
    • kavalg 3y ago
      plus the trailer that has been advertised by the owner :)
    • niemandhier 3y ago
      Yes under ideal conditions my setup has 4xxkm reach ( it claims 5xx , but I guess that means depleting the battery completely, which is not smart) . 3xx is during winter including winter tires etc. Summer usage is 17kWh per 100 km, winter usage 21-25 kWh per 100 km. Battery is 100 kWh. That is 0.342 FoBpF ( firkins of butter per furlong ) in summer and 0.422-0.503 FpF in winter on a battery of 1kFoB, if you prefer imperial units I never measured reach with a trailer. I only use it to haul lumber from the wood or buy heavy stuff close by.
      • oblio 3y ago
        Ok, that makes sense. So 25kWh would be the "whole shebang" (winter tires, heating, etc, etc). That's actually decent. I'm too much of a coward and I'll wait for the infrastructure to mature and for 120-150kWh batteries to become cheaper and more commonplace, though :-)
• mooreds 3y ago
  > 93% of trips are less than 30 miles, but the vast majority of drivers take occasional trips that are beyond the range of an electric car. We've been happy with two cars. Our main around town car is the electric car, with limited but sufficient range. The second car is ICE and is used for road trips. It's a good mix for us, but I do expect as the charging system is built out, the second car will eventually be replaced with an electric car. After all, the ICE has 100ish years of infrastructure build out that is going to need to be rebuilt for the transition.
• wakeupcall 3y ago
  Range is an issue for me. I commute by public transport or bike. I only use the car for relatively long weekend trips (3/4 hours, 300+km). For these trips, stopping halfway for charging makes no sense: I don't want to add another 30m to the trip. At the destination there is generally no charging infrastructure. If there was, that would be the only point I would consider for charging. Charging infrastructure is still underdeveloped. I see many parking spaces converted to EV charging where the electricity cost is often double of your house utility cost, to the point that almost noone charges in such places if they can avoid. The utter nonsense of the app requirements for every single charging place. Renting a car here is just a PITA. Go to the rental place, for which I need a car or public transport, waste 30 to 60m to get paperworks signed and car checked. I considered selling my car and just renting to get rid of the maintenance, but it turns out it's cheaper to get a used car like I do if you do at least one of such trips per month. On top of this, EVs are still too expensive. I never bought new cars in the first place, so I'll be looking at EVs when the used marked starts to fill up with something at the same cost level of used ICE, factoring for the battery degradation. People mention ICE maintenance, but honestly in my last 2 ICE cars, the engine was never a problem. It's usually everything else that starts breaking too often, requiring too much maintenance.
  • brandonagr2 3y ago
    Where are you going that your destination doesn't have electricity?
    • wakeupcall 3y ago
      On a hiking trip.
• nightfly 3y ago
  When I was car shopping after my car was totaled last year I worked out that at my then-current millage (90 miles per day 4-5 days per week) getting the cheapest electric car that would meet my needs would cost be about as much per month (payment, insurance, electric) as the cheapest ICE vehicle ONLY if I maintained that amount of daily milage. Any less than that and the electric option would start be more expensive because the base payment + insurance would be so expensive it would eat up most of the monthly cost. Also renting a car for a day/overnight trips sucks. I used to live like two blocks from an Enterprise during the 7 or so year range that I didn't own a car and experience was always awful the 1-2 times a year I'd have to do it. The availability of vehicles was always terrible, the people working there were scummy, pickup would take 30-60 minutes every time. My last time there really sucked and their "remedy" was a 10% coupon off my next rental, which never happened.
• bocytron 3y ago
  You are correct, and this highlights the biggest challenge of our time (in my opinion): people are not ready to make compromises on their lifestyle, even if it is proven that this lifestyle is unsustainable and threatens the future of humanity.
• burnished 3y ago
  I have driven from Seattle to Houston in an EV. On a couple odd trips it was more convenient than gas because everything is electrified and there are chargers that work off of 220v plugs. But of course people feel concerned, they always do when they go from the familiar to the unfamiliar, or when they organize trips that make it difficult to get timely help.
• ekanes 3y ago
  Anecdata: We have a model Y, and find that in the city it's an incredible car. We couldn't be happier. For road trips, it's definitely slower and more stressful because charging takes longer and the car by default stretches things out sometimes making it feel risky, especially in winter.
• agumonkey 3y ago
  How is the ev charger coverage in the US ? I thought tesla and others made it dense and reliable enough. ICEs were unable to do long distance trip until gas stations were everywhere.
• Reason077 3y ago
  Range anxiety is solved by building out charging infrastructure. There's no range anxiety once you can rely on there being fast, convenient, reliable charging stations along all the routes that you will conceivably travel on. If you're running low then you just stop and charge wherever, and whenever, it's convenient. You'd have range anxiety about gas cars, too, if there wasn't a reliable network of filling stations on the routes that you are travelling!
• pgreenwood 3y ago
  For occasional long trips; how about a small trailer with a diesel generator, and charge while you're driving?
• heresie-dabord 3y ago
  > the vast majority of drivers take occasional trips that are beyond the range of an electric car. [...] no one is concerned with the EV getting through their commute In a prosperous society, the economic activity that you describe (daily commute, occasional trip) is important. Commuting keeps workers working, and trips are part of people's quality of life. So let's agree with your point that consumers are choosing the type of vehicle that will meet all their needs. At the same time, US car manufacturers know their business well and have not delivered small EVs or small hybrid vehicles because the manufacturers have chosen to aim at Tesla's demographic (i.e. rich and "spendy"). It's clear that physics absurdities like the F150 Lightning or the Dodge RAM "RAM charger" are also aiming at rich and spendy customers. US manufacturers are delivering "autobesity". The daily commute is a dire source of pollution, though.[1a , 1b] And the combustion engine is also having dire health effects on society, therefore economic effects. At scale, combustion engines are bad for the environment and bad for people. [2] We can understand that a topologically large country or US state can't build extensive public transportation as easily as a small country. Trains and subways are expensive. Parking and roads are "easier" to build. But parking and roadways are more of the same problem at scale. The estimated 100 million daily trips in combustion engines are responsible for a significant amount of pollution in the US, contributing to asthma, lung cancer, autism, and Alzheimer's disease. [3] A right-sized selection of EVs and PHEVs would make a big difference to people's quality of life and economic prosperity. But maybe the message needs to be delivered better and more clearly. --- [1a] _ https://auto.howstuffworks.com/air-pollution-from-cars.htm https://auto.howstuffworks.com/air-pollution-from-cars.htm [1b] _ https://www.statista.com/chart/18208/means-of-transportation-used-by-us-commuters/ https://www.statista.com/chart/18208/means-of-transportation... [2] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis [3] _ https://today.uconn.edu/2019/05/traffic-related-air-pollution-killing-us/ https://today.uconn.edu/2019/05/traffic-related-air-pollutio...
  • robertlagrant 3y ago
    > At the same time, US car manufacturers know their business well and have not delivered small EVs or small hybrid vehicles because the manufacturers have chosen to aim at Tesla's demographic (i.e. rich and "spendy"). It's clear that physics absurdities like the F150 Lightning or the Dodge RAM "RAM charger" are also aiming at rich and spendy customers. They're aiming at it because like almost everything (including ICE cars), you need to make it work before you make it cheap.
• omgJustTest 3y ago
  Another way to say "this is a strawman argument on range concerns" is to say "some people use their car as a primary mode of transportation, and struggle with normal issues with combustion engine car reliability... they aren't going to overpay for a less functional product, which may have other unknown concequences". The majority of people don't know or care how their car works, they are busy with life. Being dismissive of real and tangible concerns is a luxury of excess. Electric cars are fine in CA context, but there are plenty of learning curves with these cars. I've tried to rent an electric for rental car use when taking road trips to see how bad it is... Hertz has almost given up on Teslas and Lucid has started giving several to Enterprise and others to rent them out. If you cant plug it in everywhere you park, for example in Colorado, there are some huge inefficiencies like battery heating/cooling losses which impact range up to 2x.
• p0w3n3d 3y ago
  when people buy a car, they usually want an all-purpose car, to be able to do long trips as well. Usually, there is no room in a city for two cars, and there is no possibility of relying on rental cars during vacation/mid-term breaks, as everybody wants to borrow a car at that time. Hence, having a long-range car makes sense for them and me, especially because my city wants to expel gas cars anyway.
• jliptzin 3y ago
  The whole article is crap with an obvious agenda https://electrek.co/2023/12/05/us-ev-sales-pass-1-million-2023/ https://electrek.co/2023/12/05/us-ev-sales-pass-1-million-20...
  • itsoktocry 3y ago
    >obvious agenda Yeah, Elektrek, a site dedicated to EVs with affiliate links, has no agenda.
• cj 3y ago
  I recently carpooled to the airport multiple hours away with someone with an EV. We got stuck in unexpected traffic, had to pull over to charge, and we missed the flight. Sure, EVs work for 98% of trips. But they really suck for the 2% of trips where you’re driving 3 hours to+from an airport through a busy city where chargers are difficult to find. And then there’s the experience of taking a 20 minute detour to go to a charger, only to find they’re all in use. This experience is even worse as a passenger in someone else’s EV because all you can think is “god I wish we could just pull over and fill up the tank” I love EVs for short trips, but as a late adopter I’ll be waiting for range annd battery improvements before buying one.
  • Olreich 3y ago
    Charging infrastructure and speed would mitigate that as well. Driving 3+ hours is going to cut it close on many combustion cars’ ranges too, but gas stations are ubiquitous and almost always have gas. When they don’t, you get the gas crises we’ve seen around the world when supply or delivery runs low.
• imtringued 3y ago
  If the trip is beyond the range of the EV you can just recharge it on the way. This does cost you more time, but only for road trips. Your fallacy is to assume that road trips are impossible if they can't be done within a single charge.
• rbanffy 3y ago
  One solution I adopt when I want to do a family trip with more luggage or people than our daily commuter can manage is to rent a bigger car. A week back I needed to help a cousin move while my wife needed our car. The solution was simple - I rented a slightly bigger one that managed the move with ease. The total cost is still much lower than if we had two cars.
• samcheng 3y ago
  We’ve road-tripped over much of the American West in our Tesla. The range issue is indeed FUD - it’s really not a big inconvenience to stop and charge while you’re eating, sleeping, or stretching your legs. We thought we’d take the gas car on those longer trips, but the trip is comfortable enough that we take the EV despite the charging stops. I have high hopes that the NACS standardization and Tesla’s growing supercharger network will put range anxiety to rest for good.
• HumblyTossed 3y ago
  I hope that what we’ll see happen is charging stations become more family friendly. Clean facilities, and things for the kids to do to get the wiggles out. I think range concern would go away if people didn’t picture themselves sitting in their car for 30 or so minutes waiting for a charge every few hours.
• homefree 3y ago
  The supercharger network makes road trips fine too. I’ve done them they’re not a big deal. I also somewhat take issue with the article’s premise anyway - model y was the top selling car on earth this year. Clearly people are buying EVs.
• usrusr 3y ago
  How many trips are done alone? And yet people don't buy single-seater cars. People also don't draw boat or horse trailers most of the time, yet they buy cars as if that was all they ever did. The reality is that car purchases have been driven by very rare usage scenarios, often even by completely hypothetical usage scenarios ("what if I'd have to compete on Nürburgring?“) long before the topic of BEV came up. The only way I see to change that pattern, outside of getting rid of cars completely, is a full switch from ownership (or "ownership" aka leasing) to fine-grained rental.
  • jjav 3y ago
    > And yet people don't buy single-seater cars. I'll postulate people don't buy single seater cars because they don't exist. (At least in the US?) I've long wished for a very small single seater car, something under 1000lb, only needs a tiny engine so it could have very high MPG and yet still be very fun.
• ubercore 3y ago
  It's a shame charging infrastructure seems to lag so much. In Norway (and more broadly in Europe), I don't even think about range any more, even on multi-day road trips. There's enough charging to never take you too far out of your way, and the stops are actually really refreshing. I can understand anxiety if it's not that easy, though.
• ryukoposting 3y ago
  > this one-size-fits-all solution fails to address our broader transportation problems This just about sums it up. Even the best EVs today present a combination of strengths and limitations that mean they can't replace any given ICE car - only some of them. I didn't buy my ancient gas-guzzling Lexus because it's good at doing things a public bus can do. I bought it because it's good at taking me into the sticks to see my loved ones. The problem with EVs has little to do with the powertrain at this point. The biggest barrier is infrastructure. I need to be able to charge this thing anywhere along an interstate, without specifically planning every single stop ahead of time. We can figure out charging times later, just get the damn stations out there so we at least have something.
• _ea1k 3y ago
  Yeah, that's why the little commuter style cars don't really sell in the US. Sure, we normally do <40, but sometimes even "local" means going to a nearby town and doing 80-150 miles. And DCFC is not necessarily nearby, and not necessarily fast for a car with only 50-80 miles of range. That's a big part of why the American consumer really wants a 3 digit number starting with 3. Anything else is a much harder sell. As EVs become more common, that might shift to a 3 digit number starting with 2. Tesla is already having some success here with the base Model 3, which is by far their best value. Perhaps not coincidentally, it road trips pretty decently too.
• jtc331 3y ago
  Yes. It's amazing how many people commenting here effectively refuse to acknowledge that there are ways (and more than one!) in which ICE cars are better than EVs and want to believe that no one could rationally decide on different trade-offs. I own and EV, and I love it. But pretending the paradigm shift comes with no undesirable trade-offs is absurd. And wanting everyone to come to a uniform decision about what they value is a great example of technocratic tyranny.
  • some_random 3y ago
    It's so much easier to try to shame and gaslight people into believing their problems are fake than it is to fix those problems. The "range anxiety" idea is going to be particularly important as EV tech matures and midmarket vehicles have to start being made, because those vehicles are going to absolutely suck. Right now almost all of the ones we talk about are luxury cars, of course they they fantastic performance and features, but the 20k new car of the future is going to look like the electric Mini Cooper. Estimated range of a bit over 100 miles with a 7 second 0-60. Basically an ICE car but with dramatically worse range.
  • echelon 3y ago
    I live in a condo. We have four charging ports and about a dozen EV owners. Unless I'm hyper-focused on something, I'm lazy. On the off chance I get lucky and get a charging port, I'm not going to remember to go out in two hours or whatever to move it for someone else to use. I'd probably be getting angry emails for sitting in the charging port for days at a time. Moreover, I frequently catch myself near empty on the tank. I like that I can find a gas station anywhere and fix the situation almost immediately. I had to sit and wait on a friend's charging once, and it's not something I look forward to. The whole usage pattern around EVs frankly scares me.
• NDizzle 3y ago
  People have range anxiety because the electric range estimates are just that - estimates. If not lies. I have a '22 RAV4 Prime. I had a '17 Volt for 3 years before that. I'm aware of how it works. Here's real world for you, NW Arkansas: I'm 24 miles from Lowe's round trip. 11 miles freeway, the rest is country highway. 42 miles of "range" on my RAV4 this time of year, when I return home I have 6 to 7 miles remaining. It's off by 20% or more. Do you think I could go to Tulsa and back, 212 miles round trip, this Saturday in an all electric thing? Cherokee turnpike for a large portion of it, cruise control at 82 mph. I think a lot of you city dwellers need to re-examine how you think "flyover states" work. But I know you won't, as you don't care about us, so you'll just keep these wrong thoughts in your head pushing policy on us from afar. It's working great for relations in our country so far, keep it up.
• DennisP 3y ago
  I agree, but Tesla's charging network actually works, has lots of stations, and charges batteries reasonably quickly. Now that other manufacturers are adopting it, the range issue seems mostly solved, for anyone who doesn't travel long distances so frequently that a few extra minutes per trip are a serious burden.
• roland35 3y ago
  It's not just single trips - sometimes it's the cumulative distance of multiple trips throughout the week. Sometimes I can't charge in my garage or just the fact that charging is slow and I can't get a full charge in before leaving again causes the range to go down over time. Luckily I drive a plug in hybrid but it still is an issue!
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• aperson_hello 3y ago
  While 93% of trips are less than 30 miles...I bet the percent of miles travelled on longer trips are significantly higher. I'm probably 80-90%% miles travelled for trips longer than 30 miles (I also work from home, which skews this a bit higher, but even when I was working in an office, it was at least 50% miles on longer than 30 mile trips). I'd still go EV (with a long range battery) if there were more charging infrastructure and more reasonable EV options. But there just isn't yet, so I'm in a hybrid (because the payback vs. ICE only was something like 2 years!). Would have gone PHEV too if there was anything available when I bought my car, but there wasn't. Do a 700 mile roadtrip through the center of the US in an EV in the middle of winter and you'll understand why I have range anxiety around EVs. I have range anxiety in my gas powered car in a few spots in the US and there are many more gas stations than there are charging stations! I'd absolutely buy an EV as a second car for my more local trips right now...but I don't need a second car and the production carbon costs of a car outweigh the gas carbon costs of not having a second car (not to mention the economic costs of having a second car!). Eventually once the second hand market improves, that around town+ EV might make sense for me to have. But not until then (but by that time, charging infrastructure should be highly improved and it might make sense to go full EV!).
• 015a 3y ago
  I have a Model Y. I think there's a ton of disingenuous discourse concerning EV range. Tesla will say that it has, idk, 310 mile range or something. It never has this range, period. - You cannot run it down to 0%, much like you can't run a gas car to 0% and then be stuck on the side of the road. - You cannot run it to really even 10%, because you're advised that this is stressful on the battery, and while there is high probability of a gas station within 30 miles of anywhere in the US, there is near-zero probability of there being accessible and reliable public EV charging. If it is cold out, the vehicle will advise you to never let it drop below 20%. - You cannot really charge it to 100%, because you're advised that anything above 80% is stressful on the battery, supercharging above that level is quite slow (its oftentimes actually faster to just stop at 80% and also charge at the next supercharger, and the Tesla nav knows this, which is quite cool). Some superchargers will even charge you extra for going above 80%, if they're crowded. - What this means is that, functionally, you're not dealing with 100% of the battery / 310 miles of range. You're working with 60% of the battery (80%-20%) / 186 miles of range. On the top of the line EV humanity makes. On long trips, you can eek that up a bit to maybe 70% of the range, but realistically given the distance between superchargers, its not going to make a difference.