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Try this map: https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map , it has a feature called "range circles". If you set it to 50 miles, you'll see that mo

by cyberax 11mo ago

Try this map: https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map , it has a feature called "range circles". If you set it to 50 miles, you'll see that most of the country is well within 50 miles of the nearest supercharger. Including almost all of Texas. At 100 miles of range, you only have a couple of blank spots. With third party chargers, there's really only one blank spot in Montana. At this point, the range is already a solved problem. Earlier this year, I did experiments with placing stations manually on the map and using the US road networks to calculate the isolines. With just about 70 more stations, you can make any point on the public road network in the entire contiguous US lie within 50 miles of the nearest charger. So the charging availability is likely going to be solved completely even during the current shitty admin. > It's not just about being 50 miles from a gas station, it's about the time it takes to charge on top of that. At 325kW charge rate (common on recent chargers), you're looking for maybe 20 minutes to get enough charge to reach your destination.

EgregiousCube 11mo ago
“There’s at least one spot within 100 miles where you can wait 20 minutes to get enough charge to get to the next charger” is not an argument that will convince someone to give up the convenience of the gas station.
- cyberax 11mo ago
  What exactly is convenient about gas stations?
  - wkat4242 11mo ago
    They're everywhere and you can get a full charge in 5 minutes.
    - nandomrumber 11mo ago
      And you don’t need to fill up again at the next one.
      - wkat4242 11mo ago
        Yeah that's what I meant by full charge. Most fast chargers only give you a topup in 20 minutes.
      - tguvot 11mo ago
        usually you don't need to fill up again at next 100 or so, given how much of them there are
- rootusrootus 11mo ago
  The convenience argument works for a small segment of the population that road trips a few hundred miles at a time regularly. For the rest of us, EVs are far more convenient. I don't ever go to a gas station, and every day I start out with 320 miles of range. I stop at the EV equivalent of a gas station two or three times a year. I've saved a lot of time not having to get gas every week.
  - bluGill 11mo ago
    The people I know make those road triys. Sure 99% of the time we don't, but we expect the car to do it
    - cyberax 11mo ago
      And as I pointed out, pretty much all these road trips are already possible, although some may require slight detours. With some fairly limited changes, they won't require any detours.
      - bluGill 11mo ago
        The changes are not limited. Gas pumps are everywhere. EV chargers are much more limited which means you have to stop where they are. You can make the trips, but sometimes it means you are stopping to charge in places you didn't want to be which can be a significant change. Worse the places you might want to be often don't have a charger so it can mean stop to charge in some gas station you don't want to spend half an hour at, then drive 10 minutes to the museum you want to be at. (even in the rare case there is transit at the gas station, they don't want you parking at the charger for 3 more hours after you are fully charged)
      - roadside_picnic 11mo ago
        > slight detours. If you're up in Neah Bay, WA (and I have been out there in the past so this isn't a fantasy scenario) and suddenly realize you need to charge, you need to drive over an hour and ten minutes to Forks, WA. But they only have a 250kW charging station, so you're going to need to wait 30-40 minutes. Now if you need to get back to Neah Bay, you're going to spend a total of 3 hours. And, for my case, Neah Bay, WA is closer to the nearest charging station than where I most typically am for work.
silisili 11mo ago
So if I have a vehicle with let's say 250 miles of range, you want me to let it get to 100 miles at least left to drive 100 miles to the charger, then drive 100 miles back, leaving me with 50 miles of range until I have to do it again? I'm not really against electric anything, but not following the logic of the examples in this comment.
- cyberax 11mo ago
  No. You normally don't charge at fast chargers at all. Instead, you start your trip with a 100% charge from home charging. Then after 3-4 hours of driving (200 miles with towing) you stop for 20 minutes to charge to 80% and continue on your journey.
  - roadside_picnic 11mo ago
    Being within range of a charging station doesn't mean you can charge, it means you can get there. So yes, in a crisis, it means you could charge without risk of being stranded. But looking at most of the places I've been on that map, it would require me to go out of my way, often times an 1hr or more, to charge. For gas this isn't a problem because gas stations are not just within a certain radius of me, they are on my route. But in your map, one of the towns I'm frequently in would require a 75 mile detour to charge, which doesn't really work.
jandrewrogers 11mo ago
The kinds of situations that drive range consideration for things like trucks is that your planned route suddenly becomes unavailable after you've already burned most of your range. Range anxiety isn't about the ideal case. I've had several situations in the Mountain West when roads suddenly closed <25 miles away from my final destination (and fuel). Some of these required upwards of 100 mile detour on rural roads with almost no civilization. That detour was not part of the original range calculation. For an EV the detour may not even be an option, you have to go backwards to a major highway to find a charging station that may be in range. Hell, I've nearly come up short in an ICE vehicle a couple times. I try to keep 150-200 miles of spare range on my vehicle when I am in that kind of country. That is hard to do on a typical EV.
- otoburb 11mo ago
  >>I try to keep 150-200 miles of spare range on my vehicle when I am in that kind of country. That is hard to do on a typical EV. Plus the additional anxiety of trying to figure out if dropping temperatures will add massive downside variance to your initial range estimate.
  - foobazgt 11mo ago
    I just drove 100mi in freezing temps (around 25F) at mostly interstate speeds (70+) mph. I completed my trip around 95% of EPA. Maybe a function of the quality of your EV.
WalterBright 11mo ago
The US isn't flat. Range can vary considerably with climbing into the mountain passes, or in cold weather.
- rootusrootus 11mo ago
  It's mostly a wash, the efficiency on the descent balances the climb, and overall you get respectably close to the same range you'd have gotten on a flat route.
  - grogenaut 11mo ago
    I rented a mach-e recently. Went up to Snoqualamie pass from seattle. I used over 60 miles range in 10 miles on the steep part at the end, 1/6th. Going the other way I got a maybe 20% boost in distance over flat. There were a few places I was able to regen-brake, but I never had the battery go up, only stay flat. And a few times I lost enough speed that I didn't handle an interim flat well. I was extremely disappointed. It turns out friction and drag are still things. On a pure downhill you would be able to roll, but it's not as good as going down is bad. I also found that the car did a lot worse rolling down hill than my mini-cooper manual when I just put the clutch in, which got up to hairy speeds. Heck vehicle seemed to have more inbuilt resistance to just rolling than the fire engine I've run down that hill. Overall I got 90 total miles of range and hit the flat at 10% battery. I was able to get 290 miles driving in seattle with the same vehicle.
    - cyberax 11mo ago
      That's weird. Seattle-to-Yakima at 70 mph average speed and 85 mph peak speed is about 1.5x the normal energy use for me (260 Wh/m vs 350 Wh/m). Leaving me with 20% of charge when starting at 100% (260 miles): https://imgur.com/a/Dhs38kJ https://imgur.com/a/Dhs38kJ And this was during the wintertime, so with a reasonable amount of heating.
    - Marsymars 11mo ago
      FWIW the mach e engages the regen brakes automatically when going downhill to prevent acceleration.
NetMageSCW 11mo ago
Try looking at the bubble I live in around Martinsville VA. Fortunately if I had a BEV, most trips would be toward chargers though often not very conveniently. A common trip is to Meadows of Dan on 58W - where would you charge? In general charger penetration appears slower on the East coast to me.

by cyberax 11mo ago

EgregiousCube 11mo ago

“There’s at least one spot within 100 miles where you can wait 20 minutes to get enough charge to get to the next charger” is not an argument that will convince someone to give up the convenience of the gas station.

cyberax 11mo ago
What exactly is convenient about gas stations?
- wkat4242 11mo ago
  They're everywhere and you can get a full charge in 5 minutes.
  - nandomrumber 11mo ago
    And you don’t need to fill up again at the next one.
    - wkat4242 11mo ago
      Yeah that's what I meant by full charge. Most fast chargers only give you a topup in 20 minutes.
    - tguvot 11mo ago
      usually you don't need to fill up again at next 100 or so, given how much of them there are
rootusrootus 11mo ago
The convenience argument works for a small segment of the population that road trips a few hundred miles at a time regularly. For the rest of us, EVs are far more convenient. I don't ever go to a gas station, and every day I start out with 320 miles of range. I stop at the EV equivalent of a gas station two or three times a year. I've saved a lot of time not having to get gas every week.
- bluGill 11mo ago
  The people I know make those road triys. Sure 99% of the time we don't, but we expect the car to do it
  - cyberax 11mo ago
    And as I pointed out, pretty much all these road trips are already possible, although some may require slight detours. With some fairly limited changes, they won't require any detours.
    - bluGill 11mo ago
      The changes are not limited. Gas pumps are everywhere. EV chargers are much more limited which means you have to stop where they are. You can make the trips, but sometimes it means you are stopping to charge in places you didn't want to be which can be a significant change. Worse the places you might want to be often don't have a charger so it can mean stop to charge in some gas station you don't want to spend half an hour at, then drive 10 minutes to the museum you want to be at. (even in the rare case there is transit at the gas station, they don't want you parking at the charger for 3 more hours after you are fully charged)
    - roadside_picnic 11mo ago
      > slight detours. If you're up in Neah Bay, WA (and I have been out there in the past so this isn't a fantasy scenario) and suddenly realize you need to charge, you need to drive over an hour and ten minutes to Forks, WA. But they only have a 250kW charging station, so you're going to need to wait 30-40 minutes. Now if you need to get back to Neah Bay, you're going to spend a total of 3 hours. And, for my case, Neah Bay, WA is closer to the nearest charging station than where I most typically am for work.

silisili 11mo ago

So if I have a vehicle with let's say 250 miles of range, you want me to let it get to 100 miles at least left to drive 100 miles to the charger, then drive 100 miles back, leaving me with 50 miles of range until I have to do it again? I'm not really against electric anything, but not following the logic of the examples in this comment.

cyberax 11mo ago
No. You normally don't charge at fast chargers at all. Instead, you start your trip with a 100% charge from home charging. Then after 3-4 hours of driving (200 miles with towing) you stop for 20 minutes to charge to 80% and continue on your journey.
- roadside_picnic 11mo ago
  Being within range of a charging station doesn't mean you can charge, it means you can get there. So yes, in a crisis, it means you could charge without risk of being stranded. But looking at most of the places I've been on that map, it would require me to go out of my way, often times an 1hr or more, to charge. For gas this isn't a problem because gas stations are not just within a certain radius of me, they are on my route. But in your map, one of the towns I'm frequently in would require a 75 mile detour to charge, which doesn't really work.

jandrewrogers 11mo ago

The kinds of situations that drive range consideration for things like trucks is that your planned route suddenly becomes unavailable after you've already burned most of your range. Range anxiety isn't about the ideal case. I've had several situations in the Mountain West when roads suddenly closed <25 miles away from my final destination (and fuel). Some of these required upwards of 100 mile detour on rural roads with almost no civilization. That detour was not part of the original range calculation. For an EV the detour may not even be an option, you have to go backwards to a major highway to find a charging station that may be in range. Hell, I've nearly come up short in an ICE vehicle a couple times. I try to keep 150-200 miles of spare range on my vehicle when I am in that kind of country. That is hard to do on a typical EV.

otoburb 11mo ago
>>I try to keep 150-200 miles of spare range on my vehicle when I am in that kind of country. That is hard to do on a typical EV. Plus the additional anxiety of trying to figure out if dropping temperatures will add massive downside variance to your initial range estimate.
- foobazgt 11mo ago
  I just drove 100mi in freezing temps (around 25F) at mostly interstate speeds (70+) mph. I completed my trip around 95% of EPA. Maybe a function of the quality of your EV.

WalterBright 11mo ago

The US isn't flat. Range can vary considerably with climbing into the mountain passes, or in cold weather.

rootusrootus 11mo ago
It's mostly a wash, the efficiency on the descent balances the climb, and overall you get respectably close to the same range you'd have gotten on a flat route.
- grogenaut 11mo ago
  I rented a mach-e recently. Went up to Snoqualamie pass from seattle. I used over 60 miles range in 10 miles on the steep part at the end, 1/6th. Going the other way I got a maybe 20% boost in distance over flat. There were a few places I was able to regen-brake, but I never had the battery go up, only stay flat. And a few times I lost enough speed that I didn't handle an interim flat well. I was extremely disappointed. It turns out friction and drag are still things. On a pure downhill you would be able to roll, but it's not as good as going down is bad. I also found that the car did a lot worse rolling down hill than my mini-cooper manual when I just put the clutch in, which got up to hairy speeds. Heck vehicle seemed to have more inbuilt resistance to just rolling than the fire engine I've run down that hill. Overall I got 90 total miles of range and hit the flat at 10% battery. I was able to get 290 miles driving in seattle with the same vehicle.
  - cyberax 11mo ago
    That's weird. Seattle-to-Yakima at 70 mph average speed and 85 mph peak speed is about 1.5x the normal energy use for me (260 Wh/m vs 350 Wh/m). Leaving me with 20% of charge when starting at 100% (260 miles): https://imgur.com/a/Dhs38kJ https://imgur.com/a/Dhs38kJ And this was during the wintertime, so with a reasonable amount of heating.
  - Marsymars 11mo ago
    FWIW the mach e engages the regen brakes automatically when going downhill to prevent acceleration.

NetMageSCW 11mo ago

Try looking at the bubble I live in around Martinsville VA. Fortunately if I had a BEV, most trips would be toward chargers though often not very conveniently. A common trip is to Meadows of Dan on 58W - where would you charge? In general charger penetration appears slower on the East coast to me.