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Comment by herpderpherpder | Hacker News Reader

EV are only viable for those who own their own homes. Many electric vehicles have been adequate for my needs, but I continue to drive a car with an internal combustion engine because I can always buy gas.

My apartment building has two EV charging stations (always taken) and my work has 9 (always taken).

I don't think vehicle technology or execution has been the limiting factor for a while.

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Regardless of the rationality, people have range anxiety. (Cue stat about how majority of drivers go <40mi a day).

200mi+ is the threshold that will make a lot of people feel completely comfortable using an EV day-in and day-out.

Charging stations will go up when EV sales go up--this will help.

"Range anxiety" is a condescending industry term. People are anxious about the range of their EV because the range sucks, not because of some mental barrier.

No, actually not. That's the point.

People vastly overestimate how far they drive regularly, or even ever. It really is a mental thing.

It's a deal breaker if your car can only go as far as you "regularly" drive if it fails when you drive farther than that.

No, that's the silly all-or-nothing thinking I'm talking about. What if you only want to go further once a year?

What's the cost of a one-time 30m wait to refuel instead of a 5m wait? I think it'd be far less than the benefit of no refueling wait the other 364 days of the year.

Also, the cost isn't infinite. If you were, for instance, totally unable to drive the electric car to the ski hill for your vacation you could rent another car, so worst-case you're out like $200 which is far less than you'd save in fuel the rest of the year.

Most people simply get stuck on the costs instead of being able to amortize them across the whole period and weigh them against the benefits.

I don't think it's the range sucking as much as it is a question of what you do when you run out. Gas stations are far more common, and far quicker to use, than charging stations.

I don't own a car at all currently (bus+bike+lyft/uber for me). I've been thinking about buying one, but the longest ride I'd like to do is to get to Washington DC to see friends and family. The DC metro area (and to be real, my preference would be to park somewhere and take transit once I got to the region) is 235 miles away, which is right about the top rated distance for this bolt - but when you read that the observed range for highway driving is 190 miles, and add in unexpected detours and the like, it makes me think I'd need to plan to recharge along the way. Thinking about where I could do that reasonably - and I would totally be down to stop for an hour for a meal and the like - and looking at map of the supercharging stations, leaves me with not a lot of redundant options. Charging station full or out of service? Odds are good that the whole trip will lose its competitive advantage over taking the bus or train rather quickly.

To me that's the source of range anxiety. If I knew I had decent charging options all over the place, I'd want one of these pretty badly.

I get that the EV market is seeking people who make small trips and commuting and the like because that's the easy end of the market to capture, and that's how a lot of people use their cars. But as a society I wish we could just better address those needs via investment in things like urban mass transit and the like.

I won't ever buy one because I need to take trips home once a month and the drive is 800+ miles. Companies will always be hard pressed to sell the idea that you need to take an extended break just to refuel your vehicle on a road trip.

If you're trying to drive for 14 hours continuously for the safety of everyone else on the road I hope you take extended breaks...

I would never take a privately owned vehicle on a road trip. One of my coworkers rented a giant obese SUV for a road trip and when it broke down in the literal middle of rural nowhere, it was no problem, the rental car company drove another car to their breakdown in much less than an hour, then they didn't have to deal with paying for 100 mile tows and scammy rural mechanics knowing you will pay anything to get the heck out of there. Also no wear and tear on their regular car. Plus its fun to drive something new.

If you have another person in your car, you can easily do 14 hours, by switching off every 2-3.

When I'm on a long road trip, time is of the essence. I don't want to spend more time at gas stations then I have to.

Well, OK, but don't you always come out ahead flying on anything longer than 200 or so miles? (hmm a coincidental number?) I mean even Amtrak is faster than driving, if its direct and no transfers.

Flying takes 2 hours minimum, to pad for security delays, and have time before boarding.

There's also getting yourself to the airport. They tend to be far on the outskirts of town (This also involves paying an arm and a leg if you opt to park.)

If you need a rental car on the other end, you can also look forward to 30 minutes for shuttling, waiting in line, paperwork...

Combined with the cost (Especially for multiple passengers), and the largely unpleasant experience of flying, and I will happily drive 300 miles from Vancouver to Portland, over taking a plane. 400 is probably my limit.

If all the driving you're doing is in the city, yes, an electric car is a great option. They are not a great option for a longer road trip. (Also, fuel economy/effective range goes down quite a bit when you are going above 60 MPH - and most cars are traveling at 75 MPH on an interstate. Gas cars will spend only a little more time at a gas station, but doing the same in an electric will cost you a lot of time.)

Amtrak is OK if you have +/- 48 hours flexibility on arrival times to account for random breakdowns and accidents. I tried them once, never again.

JSYK, it's probably better in the long run to use a rental or fly for that 800+ mile trip (depends on how long you stay). At a minimum, you might want to consider a good roadside assistance policy, if you don't already have one.

You must value your time at $0/hr, because at that range it is way more cost effective to fly when you factor in TCO of maintenance on the car.

Unless you're driving 800 miles into the middle of nowhere, which is so far from a typical use case that it isn't really relevant to the discussion.

It is only more cost effective to fly if he is the only person in the car. As soon as you add one passenger, the drive is the better value (depending on value of time).

I wish people would stop fighting you on this. You are exactly the kind of person who should own, or periodically rent, an ICE car. Your situation is unusual, but it's an excellent reason to stick with an ICE. And there are plenty of ways to do your part reducing emissions while still driving an ICE.

For most people, EVs will be better overall. But I wish proponents wouldn't act like there aren't corner cases like this where it doesn't make sense.

Recently started driving a plug-in hybrid. I get 20 miles electric range, 500 miles hybrid range. I don't worry about range at all when I'm in that car. When I get into my gas-powered car, and realize I only have 50 miles of gas in the tank... I get range anxiety.

It won't take long for this entire 'range' question to invert.

Living in an apartment with no chargers is a serious limitation, while gas is available everywhere (for hybrid).

Roughly 60% of the US housing inventory is composed of single-family detached houses[0]. Even if we assume an EV isn't practical for half of the households living in those units for some reason (need more range, can't have a charger installed for some reason, etc.), there's still a huge amount of room for EV marketshare growth without addressing that problem.

[0] https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/unit...

I agree generally, but think this is changing. My building has probably 10 ports, and you can get a reserved space with a charger, so you always have your spot open and a charger available.

This will change when people can make some money off charging. If you can fill up 200 miles of range for $10 in 30 minutes, then you might consider an EV even without a home charger.

Or when it's required. Landlords have to run electricity into every apartment, running it to every parking stall is a pretty small incremental upgrade.

Considering that this is something apartment dwellers can't do themselves, and there isn't a direct profit motive for the landlord, this is where regulations should come in.

Yea this is at odds with rising percentage of people who rent instead of buy. I park on the street, maybe public streets would be equipped with electric chargers with meters.

Dunno I'd see it easily being adopted in apartment parking garages "$150 a month gets you unlimited car charging!"

what about densely populated cities where ppl park on the street at night.

Autonomous driving will solve this. You won't need to own your EV, you'll just be able to pay $0.50 for a cab ride, and it can go charge itself whenever.

Autonomy will also eventually allow for in-fight recharging. A vehicle will just pull up behind you and plug in.

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