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Comment by sqeaky | Hacker News Reader

> they don't need an expensive battery swap every 5 years.

You are right, but ICE cars need all manner of other maintenance often new transmissions or outright replacement. This is a minor issue, and is exactly the kind of problem that the GP poster was talking about. These battery replacements will be talked about like they are a huge showstopper, but the reality is probably closer to wasting a an hour or two at the mechanic or dealership and some kind of fee as they take the old battery for refurb and give me a fresh one.

And someone will figure out how to charge a car on a normal outlet.

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I have a nissan leaf. It is plug every night on a normal outlet. It is a 49 month leasing. Battery replacement will not be my problem.

Well it is, in a sense that it's part of the cost of your lease. But if it's still affordable enough, then that alone would indicate that it's not really a costly problem in general.

Charging a car on a normal outlet is already possible. It just takes for-fucking-ever. You can't draw enough current from an outlet to charge it in a short span, without tripping the breaker or burning out your home wiring.

There will be some solution to this too, we will come up with some clever hack, like pluggable capacitors, multiple breakers or something. Or better outlets and breakers will become the norm.

I had 2 new breakers put in for an office of mine a few years it cost less than $200. If I could pay this then pay half as much for fueling my car for the next year, I would do it every year.

I think the "power wall" product by Tesla solves this.

You can already buy a portable box that lets you combine the power from two different circuits that are out of phase with each other, to get twice the power. I saw a post by a Tesla owner who uses it to get effective Level-2 charging from friend's country homes.

The box is empty, right? Two out-of-phase 120V circuits are a 240V circuit.

In America and other countries with 110v mains, you might have a point. In the UK, my Ampera charges to full in 4 hours.

In America, most houses have some 220, intended for a clothes dryer and perhaps an oven or air conditioning.

For a Tesla, a standard 110v circuit charges at 3.5 mph; 220 is 2x or 4x depending on the amperage of the circuit.

In US, many houses have 240v outlets in addition to 110v, for high-energy devices like stoves and dryers and large washing machines.

http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/30926/what-types-of-e...

The fuse box is normally located in the garage anyway. It strikes me that it should be fairly cheap to install a higher amp hookup for the car in that case.

We had the same issue. Our 120V circuit couldn't recharge fast enough overnight to handle ~ 50 miles daily of commute/errands. We ended up getting a 240V/40AMP circuit installed for a 32AMP charger and now it charges in ~ 3 hours. The faster charger also meant we could time it to always use the night time electricity rates.

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