Comment by jsperx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsperx | Hacker News Reader

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With respect, I just don’t understand this use case. You focus on 42 miles as being a lot of range for most cases, but exclude the ~300mi range BEV because it’s… not enough?

Less than 5% of daily trips are over 30mi [1]. One study found 70+ mi trips are barely 1% of journeys [2].

Also your example of LA-SF as an example of it being a real drag on time is instead perhaps the canonical best route, for Teslas at least. That’s the corridor between where they are manufactured and their largest market, SoCal. SuperChargers are plentiful, including the super fast 250 kW version that can do 1000mi/hr (when you are at low state of charge.) It also has in the PCH a beautiful view that you’ll want to stop and take in.

So there’s no way you’ll actually spend an hour out of your way, but if you do, why would that single hour actually be material, when the trip is less than 1% of your journeys? Why pick a PHEV for your edge cases?

Rent another car for that trip. Or take a flight (SF-LA fact: that’s also the busiest airline route in the country [3] by aircraft flown; second busiest by passengers moved)

I get the whole “I probably won’t, but I like knowing I could” sense of spontaneity but it just seems a waste to have two separate propulsion systems and the associated complexity just for that.

[1] https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips [2] https://www.solarjourneyusa.com/EVdistanceAnalysis.php [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_ai...

> With respect, I just don’t understand this use case. You focus on 42 miles as being a lot of range for most cases, but exclude the ~300mi range BEV because it’s… not enough?

You can disagree, but it's a reasonable point

Let's subdivide trips into A <42 mi, 42 mi < B < 150 mi and 150 mi < C. (These numbers assume no charging at the other end. We can tweak the actual numbers up by assuming charging at the other end.)

We can ignore, for our analysis A. Those are 100% plug in. By your sources, 95-99% of trips are in the "A" column, depending on charging on the other side.

So, you then ask "why is it material to stop for a supercharge on 1% of the trips". In this case, you kinda seem to have lost the thread. Why worry about your gas emissions if it's only 1% of the trips? Why advocate renting a second ICE car for a long trip instead of just having a single car where the switchover point to burning gas is just 250 miles shorter a trip?

But really, it's how do you estimate B vs. C. If B is 99% of the combination, a pure EV may be best. If you think C is 99%, then a PHEV is best. In between, you have to make your choices. And those numbers can be highly personal. If you live 400 miles from the grandparents and (the other way) the city you like to visit for a weekend every month, it's clear you want a PHEV. If you those numbers are 100 miles, you probably don't.

I would say it's not "clear" at all, you're putting the cart before the horse.

The long range model S can drive from SF to LA on a single charge.

Even taking into account a supercharge stop, it takes <10 minutes to charge enough to extend your range to make it to grandma's house. In practice, that's faster than a stop at a gas station.

Obviously grandma will need charging at their house to do this^, but if you're driving 400+ miles you're usually going to stay the night which means you can plug into a normal outlet and charge over night.

Obviously, you can quibble about what the cutoff distances are. It doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of travel is under 42 miles.

As for speed of filing up, that's insane. One undisputed benefit of ICE cars or PHEVs is that gasoline refill is (a) everywhere and (b) significantly faster per mile.

Going from an empty tank to a full tank often takes less than 5 minutes, counting time getting on/off the highway.

I own a tesla and agree with your points. The only thing to factor I. Is a standard outlet charge for a night might get you 50 miles of range

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