5 ms·

C’mon you can’t be building ev’s in 2025 with less than 300 miles of range

dmoy 1y ago
I want a cheap ev with less than 150 miles of range for city use. With traffic here I'm literally never driving more than 100 miles a day, and virtually never driving more than 50 miles a day. I can charge at home, I don't care if it takes 12 hours. But I'd want that car to be under $15k. That car doesn't exist, at least not in the US, so I'm still on an old ICE. My current car is worth at most $5k, and I spend maybe $500/yr on gas.
- stickfigure 1y ago
  The car exists, you just have to look at used. About three years ago I bought a gently used 2013 Fiat 500e for $8k. It gets ~80mi range in the summer (a little less in the winter though). Super fun, drives like a gokart. Plugs into 110 and charges overnight. My wife uses it for commuting and it's our standard "run to town" car. We have an ICE vehicle for trips. Absolutely would buy again.
NewJazz 1y ago
There is a nonprofit near me that has some trucks they use for hauling trash, weeds, and some misc equipment on occasion (they do habitat restoration). They rarely go more than 20 miles in a day. This would fit their needs perfectly, assuming they could cheaply charge it. They probably could figure something out, they already have a van with an RV style charger hooked up.
smallerize 1y ago
At 60 mph, it would take 5 hours to go 300 miles. I do that much driving in a day maybe once or twice a year. It's not a big deal.
- Jtsummers 1y ago
  This truck only offers 150 miles in the base model. That's the problem. If you consider the round trip distance, unless you have a chance to charge it at your destination or reliably on your route it gives you about a 60-70 mile practical range from home. And that's if you do a there-and-back with no detours. GP is pointing out that anything less than 300 is not practical, and they're not wrong. 150 miles, in particular, is just too low to be used for anything other than a basic commuter vehicle. It's useless on highways (try driving I-70 through KS in this thing) and if you change job sites more than once, you're likely to run out of range in one work day. Traveling between cities is going to be unreliable if you're not able to stop and charge at your destination. Live in Colorado Springs and want to go to Denver? You probably have to stop and charge before coming home.
  - jerlam 1y ago
    The short range limitation will also be amplified when carrying a lot of cargo or towing.
    - red-iron-pine 1y ago
      aye was my thought. lifting things will drain it faster. we're also talking in raw miles, straight line, no hills, decent weather. I'm in a hilly city that gets to -30C on the regular, and these factors could turn 150 miles in to 75 pretty fast.
  - lm28469 1y ago
    > 60-70 mile practical range from home. That's 2x the average daily distance driven, 4x if you do it back and forth. This is more like a cheap utility truck for day to day things, not a thing you want to travel in for hours at 65mph
  - mixmastamyk 1y ago
    Visit a charger every hundred miles for the couple of days a year you need to. Otherwise, enjoy the cumulative time savings. If you have other reqs by all means, pay up. But don’t force the cost on everyone else.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  That calculation does not work at all. 300 miles (presumably WLTP) range has nothing to with 300 miles of actual driving. Additionally range dictates how often you have to charge. This does not matter if you can easily charge at home, but when you have to do it at public infrastructure it is obviously a hassle, which is increased with lack of range.
tstrimple 1y ago
The average US citizen drives 37 miles per day. A vehicle like this would satisfy the needs of the majority of the populace for the majority of their activities. With lower prices renting specialty vehicles for road trips or whatever makes a hell of a lot more sense.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  Seems delusional. What would the majority of the population need a pickup for? The SUV is in all likelihood quite uncomfortable, as it has to fit into the surrounding pickup.
  - sightbroke 1y ago
    Ford F-150's have been the number one selling vehicle in America for a lot of years (Toyota RAV4 beat them last year). A small affordable truck works great as a commuter and picking up supplies from a hardware store for home improvement.
    - constantcrying 1y ago
      >A small affordable truck works great as a commuter Not if it has two seats and you want to carry more than two people. >picking up supplies from a hardware store for home improvement. I don't remember where I heard it. But it was something like "most people buy cars for reasons least likely to happen". If you aren't using your bed daily you bought the wrong car. Buy a trailer if you need to go to a hardware store once a month.
      - sightbroke 1y ago
        > Not if it has two seats and you want to carry more than two people. Then you don't want a small truck. > If you aren't using your bed daily you bought the wrong car. Plenty of cars have a second row of seats that are not used daily too. I guess they bought the wrong car as well. Plus not a lot of cars have trailer hitches...
tzs 1y ago
I think people overestimate the importance of range. It is important, but not in the way most people probably think. Consider for example a very long road trip, such as a drive from Los Angeles to New York which is around 2800 miles. Suppose Alice has a 200 mile range EV and Bob has a 300 mile range EV. Assume their cars both charge at 300 miles/hour. What effects will the range difference have on their trips? • If DC EV charging stations are too far apart the trip might not be feasible for Alice. • Assuming DC EV stations are not too far apart for Alice, then she will have to stop to charge more often. • Assuming both start fully charged, and during the trip they drive until 10% and then charge to 80% then Alice will drive 180 miles until her first recharge, and then recharge every 140 miles. Bob will drive 270 miles until his first recharge, and then recharge every 210 miles. • Alice will have to recharge 20 times. Bob will have to recharge 13 times. That works out to be a stop about every 2 hours of driving for Alice and a stop every 3 hours of driving for Bob. OK, that is a lot more stops for Alice. But lets look at the time spent stopped rather than the number of stops. • Alice first stops with 2620 miles left to go. Her car recharges at 300 miles/hour, which means she needs 8h 44m of total charge time. • Bob first stops with 2530 miles left to go. His car recharging at 300 miles/hour needs a total charge time of 8h 26m. Let's assume the each charge stop adds 5 minutes of delay beyond the actual charging time. Alice stops 7 times more than Bob so has 35 more minutes of delay. Add that to the 18 minutes more Alice spends actually charging and we have Bob gets to New York 53 minutes ahead of Alice. Suppose Alice's car could charge faster than Bob's? Say 500 miles/hour? Then she would only spend 5h 15m charging. That's 3h 11m less charging time than Bob. She'd still have 35 minutes of delay from more frequent charging but even with that she'd beat Bob to New York by 2h 36m. This suggests that for long road trips charging rate may be more more important than range, as long as range is sufficient to let you reach DC charging stations.
spaceisballer 1y ago
I regret spending the money on the long range Model 3. It’s something I charge every day because I can at home. Sure I could charge it once a week for my commute, but I just charge it up to 80%. I would love this Slate as my commuter car. I miss my Ford Ranger with a manual transmission. Hopefully this thing has an efficient motor.

dmoy 1y ago

I want a cheap ev with less than 150 miles of range for city use. With traffic here I'm literally never driving more than 100 miles a day, and virtually never driving more than 50 miles a day. I can charge at home, I don't care if it takes 12 hours. But I'd want that car to be under $15k. That car doesn't exist, at least not in the US, so I'm still on an old ICE. My current car is worth at most $5k, and I spend maybe $500/yr on gas.

stickfigure 1y ago
The car exists, you just have to look at used. About three years ago I bought a gently used 2013 Fiat 500e for $8k. It gets ~80mi range in the summer (a little less in the winter though). Super fun, drives like a gokart. Plugs into 110 and charges overnight. My wife uses it for commuting and it's our standard "run to town" car. We have an ICE vehicle for trips. Absolutely would buy again.

NewJazz 1y ago

There is a nonprofit near me that has some trucks they use for hauling trash, weeds, and some misc equipment on occasion (they do habitat restoration). They rarely go more than 20 miles in a day. This would fit their needs perfectly, assuming they could cheaply charge it. They probably could figure something out, they already have a van with an RV style charger hooked up.

smallerize 1y ago

At 60 mph, it would take 5 hours to go 300 miles. I do that much driving in a day maybe once or twice a year. It's not a big deal.

Jtsummers 1y ago
This truck only offers 150 miles in the base model. That's the problem. If you consider the round trip distance, unless you have a chance to charge it at your destination or reliably on your route it gives you about a 60-70 mile practical range from home. And that's if you do a there-and-back with no detours. GP is pointing out that anything less than 300 is not practical, and they're not wrong. 150 miles, in particular, is just too low to be used for anything other than a basic commuter vehicle. It's useless on highways (try driving I-70 through KS in this thing) and if you change job sites more than once, you're likely to run out of range in one work day. Traveling between cities is going to be unreliable if you're not able to stop and charge at your destination. Live in Colorado Springs and want to go to Denver? You probably have to stop and charge before coming home.
- jerlam 1y ago
  The short range limitation will also be amplified when carrying a lot of cargo or towing.
  - red-iron-pine 1y ago
    aye was my thought. lifting things will drain it faster. we're also talking in raw miles, straight line, no hills, decent weather. I'm in a hilly city that gets to -30C on the regular, and these factors could turn 150 miles in to 75 pretty fast.
- lm28469 1y ago
  > 60-70 mile practical range from home. That's 2x the average daily distance driven, 4x if you do it back and forth. This is more like a cheap utility truck for day to day things, not a thing you want to travel in for hours at 65mph
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Visit a charger every hundred miles for the couple of days a year you need to. Otherwise, enjoy the cumulative time savings. If you have other reqs by all means, pay up. But don’t force the cost on everyone else.
constantcrying 1y ago
That calculation does not work at all. 300 miles (presumably WLTP) range has nothing to with 300 miles of actual driving. Additionally range dictates how often you have to charge. This does not matter if you can easily charge at home, but when you have to do it at public infrastructure it is obviously a hassle, which is increased with lack of range.

tstrimple 1y ago

The average US citizen drives 37 miles per day. A vehicle like this would satisfy the needs of the majority of the populace for the majority of their activities. With lower prices renting specialty vehicles for road trips or whatever makes a hell of a lot more sense.

constantcrying 1y ago
Seems delusional. What would the majority of the population need a pickup for? The SUV is in all likelihood quite uncomfortable, as it has to fit into the surrounding pickup.
- sightbroke 1y ago
  Ford F-150's have been the number one selling vehicle in America for a lot of years (Toyota RAV4 beat them last year). A small affordable truck works great as a commuter and picking up supplies from a hardware store for home improvement.
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    >A small affordable truck works great as a commuter Not if it has two seats and you want to carry more than two people. >picking up supplies from a hardware store for home improvement. I don't remember where I heard it. But it was something like "most people buy cars for reasons least likely to happen". If you aren't using your bed daily you bought the wrong car. Buy a trailer if you need to go to a hardware store once a month.
    - sightbroke 1y ago
      > Not if it has two seats and you want to carry more than two people. Then you don't want a small truck. > If you aren't using your bed daily you bought the wrong car. Plenty of cars have a second row of seats that are not used daily too. I guess they bought the wrong car as well. Plus not a lot of cars have trailer hitches...

tzs 1y ago

I think people overestimate the importance of range. It is important, but not in the way most people probably think. Consider for example a very long road trip, such as a drive from Los Angeles to New York which is around 2800 miles. Suppose Alice has a 200 mile range EV and Bob has a 300 mile range EV. Assume their cars both charge at 300 miles/hour. What effects will the range difference have on their trips? • If DC EV charging stations are too far apart the trip might not be feasible for Alice. • Assuming DC EV stations are not too far apart for Alice, then she will have to stop to charge more often. • Assuming both start fully charged, and during the trip they drive until 10% and then charge to 80% then Alice will drive 180 miles until her first recharge, and then recharge every 140 miles. Bob will drive 270 miles until his first recharge, and then recharge every 210 miles. • Alice will have to recharge 20 times. Bob will have to recharge 13 times. That works out to be a stop about every 2 hours of driving for Alice and a stop every 3 hours of driving for Bob. OK, that is a lot more stops for Alice. But lets look at the time spent stopped rather than the number of stops. • Alice first stops with 2620 miles left to go. Her car recharges at 300 miles/hour, which means she needs 8h 44m of total charge time. • Bob first stops with 2530 miles left to go. His car recharging at 300 miles/hour needs a total charge time of 8h 26m. Let's assume the each charge stop adds 5 minutes of delay beyond the actual charging time. Alice stops 7 times more than Bob so has 35 more minutes of delay. Add that to the 18 minutes more Alice spends actually charging and we have Bob gets to New York 53 minutes ahead of Alice. Suppose Alice's car could charge faster than Bob's? Say 500 miles/hour? Then she would only spend 5h 15m charging. That's 3h 11m less charging time than Bob. She'd still have 35 minutes of delay from more frequent charging but even with that she'd beat Bob to New York by 2h 36m. This suggests that for long road trips charging rate may be more more important than range, as long as range is sufficient to let you reach DC charging stations.

spaceisballer 1y ago

I regret spending the money on the long range Model 3. It’s something I charge every day because I can at home. Sure I could charge it once a week for my commute, but I just charge it up to 80%. I would love this Slate as my commuter car. I miss my Ford Ranger with a manual transmission. Hopefully this thing has an efficient motor.