Hacker News Reader

Comment by MrRiddle | Hacker News Reader

Cost aside, how would charging on a roadtrip work when everyone has an EV? Sure in cities you can install chargers everywhere, but on highways you would need, what, charging stations with 100 charge spots? One highway gas station has hundreds if not thousands of cars per day, how would that work if each car has to take the spot for half an hour?

I don’t think people selling EVs really care about this, government is too slow to react as usual, and huge bottleneck with charging infrastructure is bound to happen.

View on HN

A highway rest stop may easily have 100 parking spots, and since most highways run through sparsely areas at many you could probably find space to increase that 10x if you wanted.

That said, if you are looking for a modern and efficient (but high upfront cost) alternative to 1-10 hour car trips between major cities, high speed rail may be a good choice

I wouldn’t say “easily”. Charging stations are much more expensive than gas stations, and they would require a lot more land and concrete to build on. All while electricity is considerably less profitable than gas.

There is also electricity consumption. By my calculation, an EV consumes similar amount of energy as an average household per month. That would require huge increase in power consumption, bringing the cost down. On the other side, we have those huge costs for charging stations, both in tech and parking space , while profit is questionable due to falling power prices.

I mean, humans will find a way, but it will be a very bumpy road unless battery tech improves by a lot.

The land and concrete already exist in exactly the right places [1]! Sure, you might have to run more power line capacity and install the chargers themselves, but this isn't some insurmountable problem. The average power line running down your street can supply dozens or hundreds of homes. This whole setup probably isn't even logistically that hard.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rest_area

Reply on news.ycombinator.com