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My parents live about 7 hours away, we go visit them a couple times a year. My wife got a masters degree a couple years ago, that was 2 hours away a couple ti

My parents live about 7 hours away, we go visit them a couple times a year. My wife got a masters degree a couple years ago, that was 2 hours away a couple times a week. If we only had an electric car, either of these would require renting a gas car for the trip. Which could well be reasonable for a couple times a year, but probably not if we visited my parents more often (say, every month). Of course this being the US we both have cars, and there wouldn't be any problem if only one of them was electric.

smackfu 14y ago
Yeah, this is kind of the fundamental disconnect. One side sees "this meet 90% of your needs." The other side says "this doesn't meet all my needs."
VLM 14y ago
There is also an interesting childcare aspect in that for logistical reasons my wife shuffled the kids around when they were little... car seats are expensive and cumbersome to install and a PITA on a 2dr car, therefore while the kids were small, my car-seat-less little commuter car was quite literally limited to my commute only and we always had to take the giant wife-mo-bile on any (including long) family trips. In practice I really didn't care, although the bigger the vehicle the less comfortable I am on the road (high winds scare me in a tall vehicle, I know if a tall vehicle hits a curb in an accident its rollover time killing everyone unlike my little car, obviously I have to drive more carefully to avoid hitting things because its huge, very low performance by all measures compared to my 2dr sports car, in summary I hate driving big cars). In theory if I experienced the same limitation due to gas vs electric I'm told over and over that I'm supposed to experience extreme agony, although I suspect it would be OK. The startup lesson is to glom onto existing limitation. Oh you can't take a road trip because it doesn't have those little car seat mounting bracket thingies. Not some spooky hidden techno stuff in the engine compartment. Keep it simple, "Oh you can't road trip because it can't hold a car seat". This is a simpler marketing message.
- kbutler 14y ago
  Your perception that increased vehicle size decreases safety is backwards. Larger vehicles (SUVs, minivans) are safer for the occupants, though SUVs impose more risk on other drivers (because of weight). http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/assets/images/2002/Aug-26-2002/SUV-report.pdf http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/assets/images/20... See graph on page 3: sports cars are far more hazardous to the driver than larger, lower performance vehicles. "Of all major vehicle types, minivans have the lowest risk" "sports cars have the highest combined risk, of all vehicle types studied" And from another paper: "For automotive crash safety, the determining factor is size, not weight: larger vehicles have more crush space to absorb impacts. " http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-Traffic_fatalities_vehicle_weight_changes_vehicle_size http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-Traffic_fatalities_vehicle_weight...

smackfu 14y ago

Yeah, this is kind of the fundamental disconnect. One side sees "this meet 90% of your needs." The other side says "this doesn't meet all my needs."

VLM 14y ago

There is also an interesting childcare aspect in that for logistical reasons my wife shuffled the kids around when they were little... car seats are expensive and cumbersome to install and a PITA on a 2dr car, therefore while the kids were small, my car-seat-less little commuter car was quite literally limited to my commute only and we always had to take the giant wife-mo-bile on any (including long) family trips. In practice I really didn't care, although the bigger the vehicle the less comfortable I am on the road (high winds scare me in a tall vehicle, I know if a tall vehicle hits a curb in an accident its rollover time killing everyone unlike my little car, obviously I have to drive more carefully to avoid hitting things because its huge, very low performance by all measures compared to my 2dr sports car, in summary I hate driving big cars). In theory if I experienced the same limitation due to gas vs electric I'm told over and over that I'm supposed to experience extreme agony, although I suspect it would be OK. The startup lesson is to glom onto existing limitation. Oh you can't take a road trip because it doesn't have those little car seat mounting bracket thingies. Not some spooky hidden techno stuff in the engine compartment. Keep it simple, "Oh you can't road trip because it can't hold a car seat". This is a simpler marketing message.

kbutler 14y ago
Your perception that increased vehicle size decreases safety is backwards. Larger vehicles (SUVs, minivans) are safer for the occupants, though SUVs impose more risk on other drivers (because of weight). http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/assets/images/2002/Aug-26-2002/SUV-report.pdf http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/assets/images/20... See graph on page 3: sports cars are far more hazardous to the driver than larger, lower performance vehicles. "Of all major vehicle types, minivans have the lowest risk" "sports cars have the highest combined risk, of all vehicle types studied" And from another paper: "For automotive crash safety, the determining factor is size, not weight: larger vehicles have more crush space to absorb impacts. " http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-Traffic_fatalities_vehicle_weight_changes_vehicle_size http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-Traffic_fatalities_vehicle_weight...