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Comment by headmelted | Hacker News Reader

I got a 2013 one not long ago with a 24kwh battery (with about 20kwh of capacity remaining). I paid well under $10k for mine with a bunch of Nissan incentives (warranty and MOT cover for 3 years, things like that).

In fuel and tax savings it'll have paid for itself within those 3 years (versus a petrol or diesel car), after which it's effectively a free, zero-tax, zero-fuel-cost car.

My point being that an EV is already an absurdly good deal if you can make it fit your lifestyle. Also, I realize I'm biased, but I don't really get the range anxiety argument. If I run out of gas in a car I need to get towed to a gas station. If I run out of electricity I need to get to literally any wall outlet.

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>Also, I realize I'm biased, but I don't really get the range anxiety argument. If I run out of gas in a car I need to get towed to a gas station. If I run out of electricity I need to get to literally any wall outlet.

This adds to my thought that EVs will be a massive boon to the working poor. No more scraping the couch cushions for enough change to put in your tank to get to work, just go sit at a free charger somewhere. No more random breakdowns of a transmission, radiator, exhaust, etc. which can cascade into a lost job from missing work since you cant fix it. Once you can get an old used 20kwh+ EV for ~$1000 in decent shape, it’s going to be amazing for these people.

You can just fill a can with gas and bring it to the car.

(this is what a tow service will do if you've only run out of gas)

Yes, but I ignored that because it didn't support my argument. And you caught me!

You're right of course, although I still maintain plugging the car into a wall socket for an hour is easy to do almost anywhere - realistically this would get enough charge for most people to get to a charger (in my case it would get me to a rapid which would top up the rest of the battery in another 25 minutes).

I wonder if the day will come soon when tow trucks feature inverters and outlets as a standard feature, in order to help "gas up" a stranded (electric) motorist.

One could pretty easily imagine tow trucks carrying around a 1kWh battery with some standard DC connector, and that would get you a couple miles.

A 1kWh battery is not big; e-bicycles carry ~500Wh.

Would be literally the electric equivalent of a gas can.

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