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Comment by packetlost | Hacker News Reader

That's great, but the USA is an entirely different story.

> If you truly need to drive for 7 or 8 hours (400-500 miles at 60) without any kind of significant breaks on a regular basis, then I'd argue that you are probably taking quite a risk to your safety (and those around you - both inside and outside your car) due to tiredness.

I've done 350~ mile trips pretty often (about 5 1/2-6 hours) and I usually only stop for 10-15 min to go to the bathroom and fuel up. Driving for a few more hours isn't really that bad, and very common in countries with 10x the square mileage of yours.

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Size of the country has no impact on this - people become tired and distracted during long drives.

At least here in Europe there are laws (for commercial drivers) about how long you are allowed to drive for, and when you must take breaks, e.g.:

> "you must not drive more than: 9 hours in a day - this can be extended to 10 hours twice a week"

> "a break or breaks totalling at least 45 minutes after no more than 4 hours 30 minutes driving"

Perhaps the US has zero laws in this regard, but these sort of rules exist due to lots of lessons learned by tired drivers killing people. Sure these are for commercial drivers, but I'd argue that if you are doing this sort of long-distance driving frequently (i.e. not just once or twice a year) then you are no different from a commercial driver and shouldn't assume these common sense laws don't apply.

The US has similar laws, you must take a 30 minute break after 8 consecutive hours of driving and you can only drive 11 hours in a day. The point I was trying to make has nothing to do with how long you can drive safely in a day. 8 hours is still within safe limits according to our government.

> Size of the country has no impact on this - people become tired and distracted during long drives.

But size of the country (and more importantly, density) has a massive impact on how far people drive and how frequently.

Commercial truck drivers yes, private individuals: not that I'm aware of (reference needed).

Long distance driving in a sparsely populated country is quite different to long distance driving in a densely populated one. Driving the length of the UK means passing by 3 or 4 major cities. The road gets wider, motorways merge, traffic gets heavy, maybe there's a traffic jam or traffic lights, the drivers are mostly local and get more aggressive. It becomes mentally taxing.

Driving long distance when there's nothing around (eg the M6 between Preston and Glasgow) is so much simpler. You can definitely drive longer when you're not constantly negotiating city-adjacent traffic.

> people become tired and distracted during long drives

You can have multiple drivers sharing the same vehicle. This is a common occurrence in both commercial and non-commercial situations (e.g. a family trip with two adults alternating driving and rest periods). With 3-4 drivers on hand, either traveling with the vehicle or trading off along the way, a vehicle can be operated continually without any safety concerns, making the EV with its limited endurance and long recharge times the weakest link.

I think you'll be amazed at what modern electric cars can do.

The Tesla Model 3 can easily add 100 miles in 10-15 mins if its battery is 30% or lower. That isn't theoretical performance, that's actual real-world performance that I've seen. That plus the ~250 miles of range the Model 3 LR has (again real-world range, without making any effort to conserve energy) means you can realistically to your ~350 mile trip with little to no change to total trip duration.

Now the Model 3 may be a premium vehicle, but EV development is only just getting started. Within the next few year we'll be seeing cars with similar performance for half the price. That tied with the rapid expansion of 150kw and 250kw chargers means that in the next 5 years, doing your theoretical road trip, with only one 10-15min break, will be possible in almost any new ~$30k electric car.

The performance and charging network right now is not adequate for most people I know. Maybe it will be in 5 years, but I give it 10.

And there are very few actual electrics on the road. I don't think it will be sustainable at all at scale. The time to charge simply is too long for any form of quick charging to exist widespread, and quick charging won't really work with an existing gas station model. They wont be able to service too many cars to make money on incidental purchases.

Yup, the gas station model is not going to work for that. IMO EVs have a very specific niche: commuters from suburbs/surrounding areas. For nearly every other situation EVs are poorly suited. For rural areas where heavy equipment is king, EVs range and utility just isn't there and probably won't be for a long time. For dense urban areas, public transport and personal vehicles (such as eBikes) are better for most people.

In the US most people don't really have an option for public transport or bikes and won't for a long time. What you call a "very specific niche" is the majority of American drivers.

I don’t know why you would stick with the gas station model, it’s completely unnecessary for EVs.

An EV charger requires minimal infrastructure compared to a gas pump, and zero attendances. That means that supermarkets etc can just convert normal parking spaces to chargers. Reducing the need for quick charging because people will shop while they charge.

On highways you can install huge 350kw chargers that can add hundreds of miles in the time it takes you to go to the loo and again chargers are incredibly cheap to install and require so little infrastructure compared to a gas pump.

The cost of a 4 pump gas station is about $500k[0], the cost of a 4 “pump” supercharger station is around $100k[1]. That’s 5x cheaper, and far easier to expand because you’re not dealing with flammable liquids.

[0] https://www.commtank.com/services/gas-station-construction-c... [1] https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/26/inside-teslas-supercharger...

I have lived here for my whole life and I wouldn’t agree that it’s “very common” to do.

It probably depends where in the country you are. Here in New Mexico, I make > 4 hour drives at least twice a month, and most people I know have similar driving habits.

I could believe that. Density drops off pretty fast outside the East Coast and the westernmost post of the West Coast.

It depends heavily. I'm in the Midwest. There's 200-500 miles between major cities, not to mention all the small rural areas further north.

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