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Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

Average daily distance driven != the most you need to be able to drive. What happens when you need to drive further than that? Are you expecting people will rent a gas car once or twice a month? Like I said, it's not practical as your only car.

> You don't see them driving a gasoline powered car near empty

It's easy and quick to refill a gasoline car. At least around me, only the very smallest towns don't have a gas station. I can't remember the last time I was more than 20 miles from a gas station. That's the point.

Some day, I suspect (and hope) they will all have recharging stations all over. But right now they don't.

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You're right that for the times you need long distance you'd have to have some other vehicle. I don't know if a cheap second car is practical for this or renting something for a long trip. I also don't suspect that it would be needed once or twice a month. I would think it would be much less than that, but I don't have any real data to back up that suspicion.

However rather than saying something like this, they exaggerate the situation and act as if you are unable to drive the EV anywhere without unwittingly running out of fuel. That in conjunction with the similar unwarranted bashing they did on Tesla makes people think they have something against EVs.

There are legitimate criticisms they could make, it isn't necessary to fabricate stories or lie about what the cars can do.

> ...act as if you are unable to drive the EV anywhere without unwittingly running out of fuel

Not to be a jerk, but have you actually watched the episode or did you just read the article?

This linked article makes it sounds like they were just driving along and poof the car died. But that's not at all how it looked on TV.

Well, they were in a big town and were told by the county council that there were no charge points remotely nearby. Whatever you think of Top Gear, that fact does not reflect well on electric cars.

Figuring out who would be able to deal with 150 kilometers (or so) of range would actually be a very interesting social science study.

I really do suspect that the numbers would be quite high, at least in many European cities. High density and reliable rail networks reduce the need for long ranged cars and when it’s down to one or two trips per year, renting becomes very viable.

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