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Comment by gordon_freeman | Hacker News Reader

One of the big concerns for buying an electric car for someone like me is the range anxiety and not practical enough if I could not take it to long drives (SF to LA for ex). Tesla has actually solved this problem on 3 fronts: having its own charging n/w around the majority of US highways, having more energy efficient batteries that can drive to 300+ miles on a single charge, and making the charging process speedier with superchargers. Until other car manufacturers do this, I am not convinced to buy anything except a Tesla.

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That's just it. My daily commute is quite normal, easily within the range of a Leaf or whatever, but I also enjoy frequent roadtrips to Chicago, Cleveland, Dayton, Toronto, occasionally Kansas City or Washington DC. Most of those are weekend jaunts, but there are longer trips too – I drove to Eagle Harbor last summer and Orlando over the holidays. I’ll probably drive to NYC this summer, as I have in 4 of the last 10 years. I love roadtrips and consider them a wonderful part of the American experience.

The standard EV-evangelist response to this is “take the train” or “rent a car for the weekend”, but I’m sorry, those just aren’t comfortable for me – the train lacks the freedom and sense of adventure, and rentals usually smell funny, among other things. Altering my lifestyle to suit the car’s limitations means it was the wrong car in the first place: The car should serve me, not the other way around. The Tesla’s longer range and presence of Supercharger stations along the routes are totally irrelevant for my daily commute, but they completely change the game when you include my other driving.

With any other EV, I would need a second car to address the other part of my usage, and that means twice the insurance, twice the registration cost, twice the driveway-space, and the chance of forgetting something important in the one car while I’m using the other. And feeling like a glutton for owning an “extra” vehicle.

That being said, I still haven't bought a Tesla for a handful of reasons, but nothing else even comes close to meeting my needs.

I'm curious, why aren't you looking into PHEVs? Prius, GM Volt, and Honda Clarity?

With 50 mile all-electric range available, these cars can be pure electric in most daily-driver situations. In fact, Volt drivers are reporting 85% electric to 15% gasoline usage, typically (with those gasoline usage being those long trips that rack up a lot of miles).

With Gen1 Volts hitting 100k miles, its more or less proven itself as a methodology and as a general technology. Unfortunately, Volt has been discontinued, but the Honda Clarity is basically an identical vehicle (albeit offered by a different car company).

I currently drive a non-plug-in Prius.

You're right, a PHEV is exactly the right answer, and my next car will either be an EV or a PHEV. The Clarity PHEV looks comparable to the Prius Prime, and I'll have to test-drive one soon!

I think you should get a car that meets your needs, and makes you happy.

On the other hand, many people "overpurchase" things in their life based on "I might" stipulations that are actually very rare.

I wonder how many pickups have actually hauled things in the bed on more than rare circumstances? How many jeeps have actually been used off-road?

conversely, how many people sell their perfectly good vehicles for no good reason than they like something new?

I did a lot of research when I went EV shopping. So many considerations!

For high speed DC Charging for trips, Tesla definitely got this right the first time; and still has the advantage for now. They’ve been the best for long road trips. That advantage is narrowing.

CCS or Chademo (the high speed charging standards everyone else use) equipment are catching up fast, being deployed in a similar fashion along interstates by Volkswagen; through their “electrify America” subsidiary.

And EVgo and Chargepoint have been extremely focused on Whole Foods, Walmart, Local Shopping malls, parking garages, etc.

I live in San Francisco and mostly drive my car in the Bay Area, with a few long trips here and there. I wanted to make sure that all my use cases were covered. I did a lot of homework.

I noticed that in San Francisco proper, not a single supercharger for Tesla has been opened yet - the nearest one is in Daly City. Anything available in SF currently is slower “destination charging.”

Seems that if one has the convenience of garage charging at home or charging at work, get a Tesla M3. One won’t need an abundance of superchargers available to them unless on road trips. Local coverage will be less important.

If one will be proudly parking their new Tesla M3 mostly on the street, can’t charge at work, and Will have to rely solely on public infrastructure, making sure there is a supercharger nearby that can fit into one’s routine is crucial.

In San Francisco, M3 owners will have to get used to shopping at Serramonte Center in Daly City until the San Francisco supercharger opens. The queue can be a pretty long from what my friend tells me, but they do have a nice Target.

One can charge a Tesla M3 at any low speed AC level 2 charger with the Tesla supplied J1772A adapter - adds about 11 to 30 miles of range every hour. These are pretty ubiquitous at this point.

In a pinch I am comforted by the ease of DC Fast charging everywhere; CCS on my Bolt EV gives me that. Since I know I can charge In all corners of SF and the Bay Area at high-speed, anxiety is nonexistent.

I maybe go on long trips (Los Angeles, etc.) only every six months or so with my Bolt EV. That’s been a pretty easy experience so far. Lots of ccs/chademo charging on 101 and 99. The 5 is getting up to speed as well. More importantly the daily convenience factor locally is key for me.

If one buys a Tesla model S or X, this problem can be alleviated with a $450 ChaDemo adapter; and can charge pretty much anywhere - Tesla Supercharger or not. This is probably ideal. Note this adapter is not compatible with the m3.

I would love a Model S if I could justify it. I would consider a long range model 3 when it DC fast charge on non Tesla hardware in the US. (European M3 have this connection instead of the supercharger connection.)

99% of the time I get by with overnight charging at home. Doing my “Buying an electric vehicle” homework suggested I take a look at my local Charging infrastructure by downloading the PlugShare app. Knowing what’s available where I usually go really made it easy to integrate EVs into my routine.

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