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A regular EV also requires no special infrastructure. Just your regular house electrical system (e.g. 120v wall outlet in the US). Only on long trips do you nee

A regular EV also requires no special infrastructure. Just your regular house electrical system (e.g. 120v wall outlet in the US). Only on long trips do you need fast chargers or does range anxiety kick in. If you do a lot of long drives I can see that being a problem. But if not I'd be willing to bet you'd lose less time charging than taking your vehicle to the mechanic for maintenance and repairs. Because the EV, when built well, requires a frighteningly low amount of maintenance.

CharlieDigital 2y ago
Problem is that because it's a full EV, it might leave me at a deficit charging only on 120v. On the other hand, two days a week I make a drive that's just beyond EV range and the hybrid just kicks in afterwards.
- celsoazevedo 2y ago
  Based on the limited info you've shared, you don't seem to drive enough to be at a deficit. Maybe it will take the night to charge the 10-20% you've used during the day, but you have a big buffer. You can't pick a car with a small battery though as that will cause problems on long trips. Something around 80 kWh should be enough for most people.
skeeter2020 2y ago
>> If you do a lot of long drives >> the EV, when built well Home charging at 120v for an EV is only practical for the most minimal & predictable use. And I'll add "as long as you don't want to sell it used..."
- wat10000 2y ago
  You’ll typically add 50 miles of range overnight, which is more than the average person drives in a day. That’s not minimal. Unpredictability is buffered by the large battery. You can drive 200 miles one day then slowly fill it back up. Fast chargers can be a backup for the occasional times it’s not enough. Why would there be an issue with selling it used when doing this?
  - sobriquet9 2y ago
    Nobody is interested in used EVs, therefore resale values are very low.
    - wat10000 2y ago
      As written here, it’s presented as a specific disadvantage of charging from a 120V outlet, so that’s not it.
    - Toutouxc 2y ago
      I’ve been hearing that for years now, and for years I’ve had an eye on the used EV market, and I don’t really see that happening here in Europe.
      - wat10000 2y ago
        I think it was true, at least in the US, back then the Leaf was the most common EV. Their battery longevity was trash, they had poor range to start with, and tax credits pushed down the effective new price a lot.
    - isignal 2y ago
      Resale values are lower in US because they factor in the 7.5k USD tax credit and the state tax credit mostly, there is plenty of demand for used teslas for example.
      - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
        Similar in other countries but sometimes not as direct. Various regulations set targets which gives manufacturers incentives to hit sales targets. This leads to discounts or great lease deals just before certain dates if targets aren't met through standard prices.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      The resale values are only low compared to the inflated COVID prices. A 3 year old Tesla 3 goes for about $25k. Which is painful if you paid $70k for the 3. However, the buyer is comparing to a new 3 which you can get for $35k after tax credit. The opposite will occur when Trump cancels the credit.
jajko 2y ago
Not really. Living in Switzerland, colleague has Model S, and over whole night plugged in his house he can charge only around 9km/h. That basically covers his commute but he can't build up charge for the weekend if he started week empty. Not even going into the fact that most folks here live in apartments and not standalone houses, and charging situation there is usually terrible and overhead of owning electric car is significant. That sucks tremendously (on top of other tesla-related suck like extremely expensive OEM replacement parts that nobody else can service), and considering we talk about Switzerland here (and expensive well developed part of it), other countries are not that better off if at all. As a backup, non-critical second car, why not if you feel like an early adopter and paying >40k for a function a used 5k car can perform even better. Main family car? No thank you, maybe for half the cost but probably even that's too much in this decade.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Is it that expensive to get an electric car charger installed? I just got two installed for $800, and the charger itself is $420 each. Even if a circuit panel had to be upgraded and some wire needed to be run, surely it is only a couple thousand extra at most.
  - orev 2y ago
    Seems like you might have a case of SV myopia. The idea that $1640 plus “a few thousand extra” to be able to drive a very expensive vehicle would be not “that expensive” is pretty out of touch.
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      Electric vehicles are not “very” expensive, even in Europe, and it’s a capital expense. That charger is going to be useful for decades to come. And if electric vehicles pencil out in the US to equal cost of gas cars including oil changes and all that, then surely they do in Europe with their higher gas costs.
      - 2y ago
thaw13579 2y ago
For many people in cities, it’s hard to secure parking with reliable access to an electrical outlet.
- c5karl 2y ago
  Not just in cities. In the U.S. at least, a lot of people live in suburban townhouse complexes that have shared parking lots. It's going to take a lot of investment to make charging easy for everyone.
- celsoazevedo 2y ago
  Something that makes it easier to own EVs here in London (UK) are these chargers on lampposts, there are probably thousands of them at this point: https://i.imgur.com/1YdeVwf.png https://i.imgur.com/1YdeVwf.png They're slow (3-7kW), can't be installed everywhere, there are not enough if everyone wants to charge at the same time, and some areas still don't have them, but plug it in when you arrive and you should be fine to go in the morning. It's a good idea and more places should adopt it.
- idontwantthis 2y ago
  That wouldn’t be a problem for the op with the phev because they are already charging at home and only driving less than 30 miles each day except 8 times in the past year. I still don’t get why phevs are a thing.

CharlieDigital 2y ago

Problem is that because it's a full EV, it might leave me at a deficit charging only on 120v. On the other hand, two days a week I make a drive that's just beyond EV range and the hybrid just kicks in afterwards.

celsoazevedo 2y ago
Based on the limited info you've shared, you don't seem to drive enough to be at a deficit. Maybe it will take the night to charge the 10-20% you've used during the day, but you have a big buffer. You can't pick a car with a small battery though as that will cause problems on long trips. Something around 80 kWh should be enough for most people.

skeeter2020 2y ago

>> If you do a lot of long drives >> the EV, when built well Home charging at 120v for an EV is only practical for the most minimal & predictable use. And I'll add "as long as you don't want to sell it used..."

wat10000 2y ago
You’ll typically add 50 miles of range overnight, which is more than the average person drives in a day. That’s not minimal. Unpredictability is buffered by the large battery. You can drive 200 miles one day then slowly fill it back up. Fast chargers can be a backup for the occasional times it’s not enough. Why would there be an issue with selling it used when doing this?
- sobriquet9 2y ago
  Nobody is interested in used EVs, therefore resale values are very low.
  - wat10000 2y ago
    As written here, it’s presented as a specific disadvantage of charging from a 120V outlet, so that’s not it.
  - Toutouxc 2y ago
    I’ve been hearing that for years now, and for years I’ve had an eye on the used EV market, and I don’t really see that happening here in Europe.
    - wat10000 2y ago
      I think it was true, at least in the US, back then the Leaf was the most common EV. Their battery longevity was trash, they had poor range to start with, and tax credits pushed down the effective new price a lot.
  - isignal 2y ago
    Resale values are lower in US because they factor in the 7.5k USD tax credit and the state tax credit mostly, there is plenty of demand for used teslas for example.
    - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
      Similar in other countries but sometimes not as direct. Various regulations set targets which gives manufacturers incentives to hit sales targets. This leads to discounts or great lease deals just before certain dates if targets aren't met through standard prices.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    The resale values are only low compared to the inflated COVID prices. A 3 year old Tesla 3 goes for about $25k. Which is painful if you paid $70k for the 3. However, the buyer is comparing to a new 3 which you can get for $35k after tax credit. The opposite will occur when Trump cancels the credit.

jajko 2y ago

Not really. Living in Switzerland, colleague has Model S, and over whole night plugged in his house he can charge only around 9km/h. That basically covers his commute but he can't build up charge for the weekend if he started week empty. Not even going into the fact that most folks here live in apartments and not standalone houses, and charging situation there is usually terrible and overhead of owning electric car is significant. That sucks tremendously (on top of other tesla-related suck like extremely expensive OEM replacement parts that nobody else can service), and considering we talk about Switzerland here (and expensive well developed part of it), other countries are not that better off if at all. As a backup, non-critical second car, why not if you feel like an early adopter and paying >40k for a function a used 5k car can perform even better. Main family car? No thank you, maybe for half the cost but probably even that's too much in this decade.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
Is it that expensive to get an electric car charger installed? I just got two installed for $800, and the charger itself is $420 each. Even if a circuit panel had to be upgraded and some wire needed to be run, surely it is only a couple thousand extra at most.
- orev 2y ago
  Seems like you might have a case of SV myopia. The idea that $1640 plus “a few thousand extra” to be able to drive a very expensive vehicle would be not “that expensive” is pretty out of touch.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    Electric vehicles are not “very” expensive, even in Europe, and it’s a capital expense. That charger is going to be useful for decades to come. And if electric vehicles pencil out in the US to equal cost of gas cars including oil changes and all that, then surely they do in Europe with their higher gas costs.
    - 2y ago

thaw13579 2y ago

For many people in cities, it’s hard to secure parking with reliable access to an electrical outlet.

c5karl 2y ago
Not just in cities. In the U.S. at least, a lot of people live in suburban townhouse complexes that have shared parking lots. It's going to take a lot of investment to make charging easy for everyone.
celsoazevedo 2y ago
Something that makes it easier to own EVs here in London (UK) are these chargers on lampposts, there are probably thousands of them at this point: https://i.imgur.com/1YdeVwf.png https://i.imgur.com/1YdeVwf.png They're slow (3-7kW), can't be installed everywhere, there are not enough if everyone wants to charge at the same time, and some areas still don't have them, but plug it in when you arrive and you should be fine to go in the morning. It's a good idea and more places should adopt it.
idontwantthis 2y ago
That wouldn’t be a problem for the op with the phev because they are already charging at home and only driving less than 30 miles each day except 8 times in the past year. I still don’t get why phevs are a thing.