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Comment by cyrildorsaz | Hacker News Reader

With the new Tesla Model S Long Range (400 miles of range on freeway), you can drive non stop between LA and San Francisco.

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Isn't the real problem with using EVs for long distance travel the charging time, though? My petrol engine car has finite range as well, but if I'm running low, I can easily find somewhere to fill up and it takes less than five minutes. If you have an EV, how easy is it to find a charging station, and how long does it take to recharge? Some of these practical issues still seem to be a long way from being solved, and until they are, pure EVs seem to have more potential for reducing emissions locally in congested urban areas than as long distance transportation.

With EVs that you can charge at home, that means that for your normal driving that you probably do 80 to 90 % of the time, you NEVER need to stop to "fill up" because you charge every night at home. The tradeoff is that when you do decide to drive more than 250 to 350 miles in one trip, you'll need to take at least one break where you charge.

If you optimize only for the long journeys, you miss out on the benefits from normal driving which you probably do a lot more often.

If you optimize only for the long journeys, you miss out on the benefits from normal driving which you probably do a lot more often.

Please be careful with that sort of assumption, though. For example, I work from home and have a lot of day-to-day facilities quite nearby, so on any given day I might not drive anywhere at all. If I'm driving, it's probably either because I need to carry a lot with me to some local event or because I'm travelling a longer distance. There are certainly efforts to encourage more of this sort of lifestyle in planning new residential areas in my country (the UK) and reduce the need for routine daily commuting over short-to-medium distances by car, so if we're taking a long-term view then we should allow for that.

You’re never more than 150 miles from a Supercharger in the US, and it takes ~30 minutes to fully charge on road trips (which is a fair compromise for never going to the gas station day to day).

What about the rest of the world, though? Granted the US has a greater problem with harmful emissions than almost anywhere else combined with a culture of big, inefficient vehicles that make these alternatives particularly attractive. But people in other places are asking about the future of transportation and how to make things more sustainable and environmentally friendly too, and the arithmetic doesn't necessarily work out the same way if you're starting from a more normal baseline.

Electric busses, scooters, and taxis for urban areas, electric cars for private owners and suburban/rural areas.

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