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Comment by p0rky | Hacker News Reader

So you decided to not have a house or apartment?

If you live in an older condo building with an uncooperative board, and physical challenges/long distances related to surface mounted conduit routing in the underground parking garage, it could be $8,000 of licensed electrician work to run a new 240VAC circuit to your single parking spot.

edit: there are also a number of people who have street parking only. Look at any older neighborhood, it could range from Queen Anne hill in Seattle, to many parts of Boston. Houses may have neither garages nor alleyways.

One of the things they did with the Model 3 was to improve the efficiency of 120V charging, partly for that reason. Trivia: In Canada, the CEC since 2012 requires a NEMA 5-20 outlet for EV charging at a minimum, and with the Model 3 6-7 miles per hour with it is not uncommon.

It's still not going to be able to pull anything more than about 1700W from a 120V 15A circuit. Maybe slightly more efficient but the bottleneck is the amperage capacity of the circuit. Think of 120V charging as exactly like a hair dryer.

AFAIK for EV charging it is ~1400W for a 15A outlet and ~1900W for a 20A outlet (because the load is continuous), and the difference between the two for the Model 3 is probably around two miles per hour or so.

Correct, assuming a dedicated circuit in the US, code dictates that it'd be 1440W and 1920W for a 15A and 20A outlet, respectively. Continuous loads can only pull 80% of the max circuit load.

In theory, you could also run a 100% rated breaker to pull more power, but the car would have to be able to support it as well.

We use 120 to charge our leaf. It charges at 4 miles per hour. Plug it in after a typical 40 mile day and it is ready in the morning.

Some government agency is likely to step in and make this illegal, right? Just like the FCC allows me to put up a satellite dish no matter what my landlord or condo board says?

AFAIK some states have such laws, but apartment 120V charging will still likely be the mainstream in the short term. Especially as apartment dwellers are likely to live closer to work for example, not to mention the cost if every parking spot had it (there is even power sharing with EVSEs).

Don't count your chickens before they hatch. The government already stepped in to make sure that you had to pay $8k for an electrician to get the job done (actually you're probably paying for the licensed electrician to send out an apprentice to to the job). It's all about who's special interest group hires the better lobbyist.

The state laws I have seen don't dictate the exact cost, though there may be other issues like unions which applies to many kinds of electrical work.

I'm just saying that just because your side is "right" doesn't mean the other side doesn't have a better lobbyist.

Palo Alto has such a law.

I decided that it’s better for me to rent for now mostly to be totally free of any loan.

Also, I can optimize for lifestyle changes more easily (choosing to have a garden or not, living with more people or less, moving to a more luxirious or a cheaper condo based on my earnings,...)

I recently made that decision too. I sold my car and now never have to worry about parking. Uber and renting a car is substantially cheaper.

I see people say this all the time, but how is this possible? Do you work from home? I only live a few miles from work and Uber would still way out-expense a car payment, gas, and insurance...and even then, my car is worth a few thousand at the end, at least.

Not that I've seriously pursued this angle but napkin math tells me it would either break even or cost more to Uber.

> I only live a few miles from work

Bike?

Sure, but I was talking about Uber vs owning your own vehicle.

I used to Uber in the morning and take the bus home in the evening. Came out to less than $350 a month, including the bus pass. Not sure how that compares to a car payment plus insurance and everything else since I've never owned a car.

What I will say is that I was in a car incident while I was taking a ride share (competitor of Uber) and for me it'd be worth it just to not have to deal with the aftermath of something like that.

I can use Amtrak to visit family, which I greatly prefer to Chicago traffic. I walk to work and can use Uber with my company's pre-tax benefits when I need to go somewhere else. I don't have to pay for parking, which is pretty expensive and my driving insurance is half what it used to be. For the 4-5 times a year I actually want to drive I can easily rent a car. Uber pool is also pretty cheap if you are not in a hurry. Plus if I am desperate I can take public transportation. But at one point when I had a nonwalking commute I realized Uber pool was roughly the same cost as public transportation and much more comfortable. I probably pay 75 on Uber a month, plus the 25 for insurance. Vs 140 on parking and 68 on insurance. Car rental is 100.

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