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Comment by saudioger | Hacker News Reader

The only thing holding back EVs are/were batteries/charging times. Aside from that they're easier to maintain and perform better — on paper they're loads more practical.

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Range more than charging times.

With EVs (and if you have a charger) waking up with a 'full tank' is pretty amazing... something ICE auto can never experience.

And an electric car owner won't experience being low on charge and filling up in less than one minute, unless battery swapping schemes come to fruition. Dealbreaker to me being stuck charging for hours (or even overnight if I only have 110) if the batteries are low.

> hours

Try 40mins, although honestly I've never needed more than 30 minutes in my 80,000 miles I've put on the car including one weekly trip that required charging on the go.

but long trips are so rare in most people's lives. perhaps we will start renting gas cars for long trips. similarly, most people own small-ish cars and rent a u-haul when they need to carry big objects.

For the majority of people, a car is a utility item; car buyers tend to price in the worst case scenario when buying a new vehicle. Statistical arguments don't really work in these cases, because even if an EV covers 90% of your use case, if the 10% is critical, the EV isn't an option.

As an example, a tradie who runs their own business might very well rack up enough hours driving that an EV just wouldn't work for them (not to mention the likelihood of carrying tools or towing trailers). Or what happens if you get home late and the street charger is taken?

EVs seem great on the surface, but are they necessarily practical for the average person? I mean, they could be an iPhone moment, but they could also be an Amazon delivery drone moment, too.

"because even if an EV covers 90% of your use case, if the 10% is critical, the EV isn't an option."

If we did the sensible thing and taxed energy until people chose the efficient option, I believe plug-in hybrids would take over.

Electric car enthusiasts are instinctively against the added complexity of a gas engine, but it's countered by the substantially reduced amount of battery capacity needed and the fact that now 100% of the use cases are covered.

I believe that a large carbon or energy tax combined with otherwise laissez faire policy would have the major benefit of getting people to do the efficient thing rather than the ideological or emotional thing.

The feeling is called "range anxiety" and is a very common and well understood phenomenon with people who don't actually own an EV or have just had it for a short time. In reality it's almost a non-issue, especially if you have a car with a battery large enough.

In ~ 6 years, I've only had one incident that comes close (a road was closed and I didn't have the range for the detour, so I had to drive to a super charger).

The truth is that, yes, you have to plan slightly more perhaps, but I'll happily pay for all the other benefits (not least is never having to go to a sketchy gas station).

I'm not sure if I've ever filled up in a minute, including paying.

All this stuff takes is a change of schedule if you cannot charge at home. Instead of eating breakfast and reading the paper at home in the mornings, you go out and do it at the charging station. You aren't generally stuck for hours at these places. Or you do it on your way home. Workplaces here are offering power to folks and many parking garages/city parking spaces do as well. This takes care of being out in the world.

I don't see how overnight is an issue if you are at home. You aren't using the car when you sleep.

Long distance travel? Don't they recommend you stop and stretch every few hours anyway? This is built in. Or you can take public transport.

Never is not the right word.

I owned a natural gas combustion engine Honda Civic for a decade and refueled at home.

That's fascinating. Curious how the gas is stored. I remember for a while there was talk of fuel cells based on hydrogen, but safely storing the gas was problematic.

In the house you just run your natural gas line into a small compressor.. no storing it, just turn it on when you need it. It takes several hours to fill with this setup, but it's not a big inconvenience.

In the car the gas is just stored compressed/liquified in a tank. It takes up a lot of space, so you end up sacrificing some trunk space. Again, just another tradeoff.

I can’t buy one from my brand I trust.

I don’t want a GM. I don’t like the way they look anyway. The offerings from Honda or Toyota or often limited to certain states and I was unavailable in less I want to go through the giant hassle of purchasing it somewhere else and then getting it shipped here (so I don’t get stuck charging it on a very long journey over and over and over again).

I’m not aware of Ford having one. I know BMW does, I saw one the other day (not a big fan of the looks), but that’s way out of what I would want to spend anyway. Mercedes would be the same issue if they have one. The leaf has a small range if I remember correctly. The bolt is a hybrid, and isn’t the volt as well?

Honestly, I don’t know of any all electric cars made by non-luxury brands except for the Leaf, Clarity and all electric Prius.

Just having one decent all electric car available from each of the major brands in the majority of markets would be a big step forward in allowing the transition to happen. If you don’t want to pay luxury prices you have a very limited selection. And it’s worse if you don’t live in California or a handful of other places.

That's not the only thing. How about having to drop ~$8K every 6 years to buy all new batteries after the originals have severely degraded.

I think battery tech has to improve quite a bit before EVs can truly overcome ICE vehicles in the mainstream.

It's already under $6K for a LEAF battery replacement. ICE drivers have to drop at least ~8K every 6 years for gasoline and engine maintenance and repair. And "severely degraded" is -30% capacity, not really severe except in the older lowest-capacity batteries.

https://electrek.co/2018/03/26/nissan-leaf-battery-pack-repl...

Except along with that -30% capacity drop, there is also increased internal resistance in the battery that is also going to affect range (lower miles/kWh). It's not just -30% capacity = -30% range. E.g. this Leaf owner who, after 5 years, had -37% capacity but -50% effective range: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-life-expectancy-of-a-Nissa...

I won't dispute the $8K/6 years for ICE vehicles (although I am curious if that's legit) but if you look at the savings rate of the average American I think you'll see ICEs' steady expense rate of gas fillups, oil change, etc. suit it better than EVs' lower day-to-day but eventual massive hit.

I don't think it makes sense to count the cost of gasoline for an ICE while not counting the cost of electricity for an electric.

I wonder how much of this is myth, rather than reality. Or rather, only an issue on cars with poor battery cooling/management.

C'mon, look at the data. That's not even remotely true.

https://electrek.co/2018/07/17/tesla-model-s-holds-up-400000...

I did look at the data. I really wanted to buy a Nissan Leaf but it just didn't make sense with having to deal with battery replacement headaches. If I could afford buying a new car every 4-5 years like a different commenter in this thread it would be a different story.

How about c'mon and read your own article. Your "data" is an article centered around one specific EV that achieved 400K miles, which btw went through two battery pack replacements:

> A lot of people are probably interested to know how the battery pack held up, but unfortunately, it didn’t. It was replaced twice during the vehicle’s 400,000 miles.

Womp womp. Have fun with that when you're outside of Tesla's warranty.

The fleet-level data is interesting but not terribly relevant to compare the driving habits of an in-city luxury taxi service to the typical American, who will be making longer range trips. It's also skewed to be comparing the maintenance cost of luxury cars (Lincoln Town Car and Mercedes GLS) - the comparison should be a Nissan Leaf to a Honda Civic or an Accord.

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