Hacker News Reader

Comment by tshaddox | Hacker News Reader

> Anticipating your next complaint (“It takes so much longer to recharge!”) - You also save a lot of time by charging at home and never having to stop at a gas station.

This is not really a valid argument. The point isn't how much time you spend refueling over a lifetime, but rather how many miles you can travel in a reasonable day for a long road trip (and how flexible your route can be). If long road trips are important to you and you only have one vehicle, of course you probably don't want it to be an EV.

In my view, EVs are incredible, but they're still a hard sell for most single-car households in America. But people should buy the car that matches their needs! No one is better off when fans of a particular type of car deliberately try to convince people to buy that type of car against their interests.

View on HN

Did you read the rest of my comment? Quite an uncharitable response. I address exactly that...

I still think EVs are okay for a family that does a lot of road trips. You are describing... me. I routinely make a ~12 hour drive. We take a bit of a break every few hours to walk around and play with the dog. The rest of the time, car drives itself.

Hacker News is really getting worse. Taking me out of context by quoting the first line of my comment and ignoring the rest (where I specifically address your comment) is inappropriate. We are better than this.

I read the entire comment. I’m not talking about relative costs of waiting to refuel. I’m just talking about actual effective daily range for a road trip. Refuel times directly affect daily range.

It is obvious that "refuel times affect daily range." The question is whether slower "refuel" times on long trips are a net negative to ownership of an electric vehicle. Most people would say no.

It’s not exactly 1:1 equivalent because maybe long drive waits are more costly than frequent short gas stop visits and waits when you aren’t on a long road trip

As I said...

> It’s not exactly 1:1 equivalent because maybe long drive waits are more costly than frequent short gas stop visits and waits when you aren’t on a long road trip

Your comments have been quite low quality, I think kind of emblematic of how Hacker News has declined throughout the years. It's very easy to be contrarian if you can pick upon a thread, but as far as I remember HN guidelines discourage that.

I'm sure you have not formally crossed Amy HN guidelines, but it kind of sucks just seeing the current state of discourse (eg you) here compared to what it used to be.

Finally - I’d add that “refuel” times DO NOT affect daily range for an electric vehicle. You refuel at home, while you’re asleep. It’s irrelevant in those circumstances.

Okay. I’d prefer you discuss whether my comments are representative of HN’s decline elsewhere. I’m not qualified to judge that.

It may be that, at this stage in the technology, EVs may not suit all families as a single car. But there are many families that do have 2 or more cars and it totally makes sense for one of those cars to be and EV. Eventually, as battery/charger tech matures it becomes easier to satisfy those single car families, too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com