Comment by stoicShell | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stoicShell | Hacker News Reader

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Here's what most surprised me recently, which compounds all your points.

Middle of Nowhere, France, 11 AM. My Uber arrives, a cool Model 3, "huh, great!" I thought, "I'm gonna pry this guy's brain for info on EV's."

Sure thing the driver was a talker and over the course of the next 20 minutes proceeded to tell me all the good and bad, in his opinion — it was his 3rd or 4th EV.

Tesla is "out of this world" — his words. "And you know why? Because they have the best free charging network, period, others are not even comparable". Remember, we're in the middle of nowhere in a rural town. He points to me a couple gas stations on the map nearby: "I can charge there, super fast, no problem. But with any other brand, the German, the French, the Japanese? It's a mess. Nothing before 30-40 miles at least, can only charge during work hours, that sort of... problems. And Tesla's (sorta) free and has much more range to top it all."

Consider that we're talking infrastructure, Tesla being better than the French and German brands in France of all countries, about 200 km from the German border!

So, there's that. The headstart and pragmatism of Tesla, even far away from homeland, USA is big and consequential — it'll take years for others to catch up, and they're not heading this way as they all rely on different standards (NIH syndrome) and bodies like the EU haven't catched up on regulation yet (like they did e.g. for phone chargers normalized to micro-USB, now USB-C).

I know it's anecdotal, but for a professional driver it was pretty clear that Tesla is just about unchallenged in EV.

This sounds nice for Tesla, but it sounds utterly insane from a greater perspective that EVs can't charge at any electric charging station.

How stupid does it sound if I said I needed to find a Ford gas station to fill up my car?

Agreed, it's insane. I don't know about most countries, but in France, some brands (Japanese iirc?) would have you go to their branded car dealership to charge. How crazy does that sound? (I couldn't believe it when he told me that, sorry I can't recall which brand it was)

The whole thing sounded mind-boggling, really. Anecdotally, my partner is seeking to buy a new car for a 1h commute so I wanted to get her a small EV — but the charging options make it totally impossible (short of getting a Tesla but that's way above our budget for this 2nd, smaller car). Consider that we live in France 30 km away from Luxembourg, a major financial/tech/political hub in the EU. What gives? I honestly don't get it.

If Tesla ever makes a sub-20K €/$ small EV suited for hourly commutes, they can just take my money.

> some brands (Japanese iirc?) would have you go to their branded car dealership to charge

That's probably because these Japanese brands use CHAdeMO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHAdeMO), while everyone else uses Combo 2.

CHAdeMO is only for fast charging, which manufacturers say you should only do occasionally. (It's hard on the battery pack.) The Nissan Leaf comes with a CHAdeMO and (at least in NA) and a J1772 plug for routine slow charging.

Does this mean that if you don’t drive a Tesla, you have to make a conscious decision whether you’ll charge fast or slowly, or you’ll damage your battery pack over tine?

Fast chargers cost more to use, so you only use them when you have to. https://www.blinkcharging.com/ev-charging-fee

> Anecdotally, my partner is seeking to buy a new car for a 1h commute so I wanted to get her a small EV — but the charging options make it totally impossible (short of getting a Tesla but that's way above our budget for this 2nd, smaller car).

Can't you get a charger installed where you live and charge overnight?

If you have the space and don't rent, then yes.

I wish. We live in a rented flat downtown a mid-size (100K pop) city. It falls down to city management, putting chargers on every street corner or just about... Suffice it to say it's not happening right now. :(

Gas stations do have different octane ratings and diesel. Every station just happens to have at least 4 options these days.

> Gas stations do have different octane ratings and diesel.

And none are manufacturer exclusive and virtually every gasoline powered vehicle made runs just fine on regular unleaded.

Yeah, pretty much all cars don't need it except for sports cars. Although it's pretty important if the car specifies that it needs high octane gas. I know one person trashed their engine cause they thought it was a gimmick... whoops!

I think newer cars have knock sensors, which just means you're engine will run rich and burn way more gas than you need to in order to protect the engine but I wouldn't risk it. If you can afford a sports car you should be able to afford the premium gas to go along with it.

I have a car that "requires 91 or above". It runs fiiiine on the "regular" octane (87). Obviously, you don't want to do it for an extended period, and if you do use it, it's not a great idea to put your foot down.

I have run into very rural stations with only 87 and a bottle of octane booster behind the counter.

There are charging standards and you can charge a tesla at the generic chargers, it is just slow. Similar to being able to put 87 octane in a sports car but then it won't perform as well (and there is a bit of risk as well should some sensors not be working properly)

Gas stations, I think, are required to post prices on signs, be regularly inspected to make sure they are providing the quality and amount of product they are supposed to, and don't require you to click through an EULA. I don't have the impression that this is the way chargers work.

And you can refuel much faster. I can fill my entire tank in less than 2 minutes, to get the same mileage with a car I'd be looking at an hour (if not longer). I spend less than 2 minutes a week getting gas and as a renter I can't install charging at home, and work doesn't have any charging options, meaning I'd be sitting around an 30-60 minutes a week at a charging station twiddling my thumbs. Also the cheapest Tesla is more than I gross annually. You just can't beat that time savings, I've got better things to do than driving way out of my way to find a charging location, hope a fast charging is available, park and sit there for ten minutes or more while right now in my 15 minute commute I pass 8 gas stations, that can all provide me fuel, that are all much faster.

EVs are never going to get widespread adoption until old apartments start getting torn down and replaced with new-construction apartments that have charging at every spot as a quick Google query shows something like 39 million people in the United States live in apartments with one article claiming:

>Apartment rentals will make up 27 percent of all new housing units built in 2018 and 2019. [1]

And the simple fact is, apartment owners are cheap. They generally use the cheapest appliances, the cheapest carpet, the cheapest fixtures... you think they're going to start shelling out even 1-2k$ per parking spot? Even if they added a surcharge of a few cents a kWh it would probably take them 3-5 years to recover their cost because people will charge elsewhere from time to time, and not everyone will drive an EV so some will sit unused for potentially years.

[1] https://www.nreionline.com/multifamily/apartment-rentals-now...

To put in the effective Tesla chargers, rather than the slow trickle ones, in many cases building owners would need to upgrade their panels, and likely need to put in higher amperage services. That's not cheap, and unless the premium you get for having a charger is on the order of a couple hundred bucks a month, or there are massive subsidies, it is not very attractive.

They can charge, just slowly. I think the driver was saying that he can change free on faster chargers, maybe?

> and bodies like the EU haven't catched up on regulation yet (like they did e.g. for phone chargers normalized to micro-USB, now USB-C).

AFAIK they have already standardized on the IEC 62196 Type 2 connector (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_2_connector) for AC charging and the Combo 2 connector (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System) for fast DC charging.

French dude made a small review of all the tiny flaws on the Model 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuYRwf93Umo

clickbaity title but it was interesting to see the practical side of things rather than the skyrocket moonshot company changing the world.

The charger network team is definitely forward thinking regarding demand forecasting and build out. Friend of mine used to work there and the team works very hard to stay ahead of the curve, knowing that this infrastructure is vital to the user experience

That's why Ford announced that at least in the US they're buying into the Tesla charging network[0].

https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-fordpass-charging-netwo...

minor clarification: That is not what this article says. Ford's network does not include Tesla's superchargers.

> That's why Ford announced that at least in the US they're buying into the Tesla charging network[0].

Ford announced no such thing and your summary is false. They are investing in a rival network (consisting of multiple independent providers) that they claim is more extensive than Tesla's.

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