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Comment by radium3d | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Model 3 owner here. I don't understand why you would ever want a vehicle that must be refueled / recharged at an uncontrollable third party station instead of just having a car ready to go at home every day with the option of solar power. Will they also release cheap at-home hydrogen generators to go with the cars?

Hydrogen does sound like an interesting option for countries that can't generate the power needed to generate hydrogen for power plant scale operations with green options like wind and solar. The hydrogen could be generated elsewhere and brought into the country or regions I suppose?

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ICE car owner here. I don't understand why you would ever want a vehicle that must be charged for over an hour at uncontrollable wait times for a charging spot, when you want to travel longer distances, instead of just having a car fueled in 5 minutes at a gas station, which are everywhere and with zero to minimal wait times.

Just to rephrase your argument. I actually do understand the benefits of an EV, but you definitely give up some freedom with it. And charging infrastructure will most likely never reach the level gasoline infrastructure is at, simply because charging takes much longer than pumping liquid in a tank.

Further as mentioned in another answer, I would be legally unable to install a charger at home (even a non-fast-charging one).

We are years, if not decades, away that the EV charging infrastructure can compete for long-distance travel and I wouldn't switch before. (yes, I travel regularly over 500km one way)

First of all, you don't have to charge for over an hour, a Tesla Model 3 charges between 20 and 40 minutes, the 20 with the new superchargers v3. That is reasonably close to refuel your car and take a bio-break. The wait times for a "charging spot" are as uncontrollable as the wait times before you get to the fuel pump. It is just a matter of supply and demand. But Tesla even shows you the free supercharging spots in the navigation system. I doubt, fuel stations offer this service. But this only matters on long distance travel over 4-500km as an electric car can charge from any electric outlet. If you charge your car over night, you will visit charging stations way less often than gas stations with a combustion engine car.

And I explicitly mentioned that I can't charge at home and regularly travel over 500km. Also I can't expect there to be a charger at my destination. It was an answer to the blatantly phrased "i don't understand" of GP

Fueling stations don't have to offer this service. At least in Germany I had never had to wait more than 5minutes for a spot with over 50.000km on the road so far. And if a station seemed utterly full, the next one is less than 10km away. However, friends with a Tesla have complained over fully occupied charging spots during long distance travel. So your 30min bio break can need another 30min of waiting. 30min of charging vs 5min of filling up gas, still needs 6 times more capacity to support the same number of vehicles. Also a 30min breaks invites you to leave the vehicle and go for food/whatever, causing you to occupy the charging spot longer than needed.

Don't neglect that these Tesla Supercharger 3 stations are also expensive to build.

Don't get me wrong, I do want to switch to an EV, even just because of the nicer driving experience, but there are legitimate downsides to it (currently). Talking those away with optimism is nothing but marketing talk.

Wether you have to wait for a spot to recharge is only a matter of available stalls. Tesla is quite good there and constantly is expanding their number of stalls. Currently most locactions have at least 10 charging stalls, so even if all are occupied, you don't have to way a full charging duration for the next free spot. If you leave a Tesla at a supercharger longer than needed for recharging, after 5 minutes you start paying per minute for your stay. So people are well motivated to return to their car reasonably quick.

And yes, I agree, there are use szenarios where electric cars are not quite as comfortable as ICE vehicles. On the other side, if you drive a lot, the cost savings of an electric car could be significant and should be factored into the buying decision.

> yes, I travel regularly over 500km one way

But many people don't. I travel more than 200km by car (range of my i3) only a few times a year. And for all those other days, having a charger at home is just soooo nice compared to having to frequently waste time at gas stations.

In two or three years you'll have a EV option that can surpass your regular distance; and any legal hurdles to installing the required electrical systems are something that should be dealt with on state/national level and made illegal for your jurisdiction. By the way, "slow charging" only requires a regular power socket so no install required in most cases.

I know many Tesla owners here in the Netherlands that has never even TOUCHED a fast charging system. :)

They just get home, stick it in the charger and in the morning go to work. That's literally IT. Also very low maintenance intervals.

About 50% of the population in germany are renters, not owners. And for the other 50% owners, obviously many just own a unit in a multi family building, not the whole propery.

For manyyyyy of these people there simply is no option to conveniently fast charge their electric vehile at home. No renter will want to invest in a pricy wallbox at a property that they don't own - even if the landlord would allow such a wallbox to be installed (most don't want any modifications to their building). And for the apartment/unit owners, a german court has decided that all the other unit owners must agree to such a wallbox being installed, so thats another obstacle.

That's a valid point - charging EV's in multi-family buildings is an issue although there are many public charge stations now and with the range of new EV's a bi-weekly charge or so might be enough for most people.

You don't have to fast charge a car at home. Even at a standard wall outlet, over night you can easily charge 100-150km of range, that is way about the average driving distances. Compared to the value and cost of a parking space, the investment into electric outlets at each spot is really negligible. As soon as there is enough public interest, equipping them even for rended places shouldn't be a big deal.

The bigger problem is actually the one he just mentioned on the side. Most places you are legally not allowed to add charging stations to your rented place. It's not just the landlord giving permission, it goes on with billing.

This stuff doesn't just go away and I would suspect even politics would have trouble changing the law for this. There is a lot of supreme court control involved when it comes to property.

The legal problems are easy to solve - unfortunately a corresponding law was proposed as early as 2016 and is stuck in bureaucracy since. Passing it would be the easiest way to boost electric cars. Otherwise, the home owners just have to agree to such an installation, this shouldn't be impossible either. I am living in a multi-unit house and we have the electricity meters right besides the garage - drawing cables from there would be easy. Otherwise one would install additional meters for the garage, which isn't a to large effort either.

> Even at a standard wall outlet, over night you can easily charge 100-150km of range

I live on the third floor of an apartment block. Am I supposed to throw a 30-meter extension cord down the balcony every evening?

You underestimate German landlords.

They are just waiting until the government makes the costs for charging outlets tax deductible. After that, they will everywhere as quickly as you can say "Elektrizität" :)

It's being used a lot for busses and there's talk of using it for heating instead of natural gas and anywhere else gas is used. It actually makes a lot of sense for buses/lorries/taxis at least until batteries can charge faster (4-6 hrs of use in 30 minutes).

Does it? It seems like it would still be more efficient to just use swappable battery packs. IIRC hydrogen is either made by cracking natural gas (which puts out carbon), or it's made extremely inefficiently via electrolysis (in which case you waste much more electricity than you would by charging batteries). The former is more economical than the latter, but doesn't seem to have much in the way of environmental benefits AFAICT vs. just using the nat gas directly.

To spare you from wondering about your downvotes, the article you didn't read has nothing to do with cars (even if the title image suggests otherwise,) and is instead about industrial and energy supply applications.

Thanks, added some comments on the utility scale usage

Good point - I am surprised to read this, thought hydrogen was a thing of the past. Most of the German car manufactures are releasing EV's though...

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