Hacker News Reader

Comment by laputan_machine | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a remarkably short deadline and I don't think the infrastructure will be close to being ready by that date. The UK deadline for instance is 2030... I know of two public electric charging points in my city.

I assume they'll be exemptions for tractors, HGVs, etc, but even so for the person who travels hundreds of miles a week across country for their job, do we think they'll be consigned to buying used cars, or that the infra will be in place?

I want to believe, I just don't see it happening.

View on HN

There's got to be more than 2 public charge points in your city, assuming you're in the UK. I mean my local Tesco has 4 and it's not even that big.

Have a look on https://www.carwow.co.uk/electric-cars/charging-points I bet there's more around than you think.

Given that fast charging and electric cars with ranges of 400 miles are available right now I don't think that the 2030 deadline is all that crazy given that the number of charge points is only going to grow.

Every house with a garage is already a charging point. Every house with a private driveway is easily adapted.

The aim is for 300,000 public changing points by 2030, currently there are around 30,000.

If you're living in a city without a private driveway then do you need a car?

If you live in a rural area just park on your drive and plug in to your wall.

Motorways have long corridors, no reason they can't have long power feeders to rapid chargers at service stations. At 40kW and 4 miles per kWh that's 160 miles per hour to charge. Assuming you start off with a full tank of 300 miles, you drive for 2.5 hours at 70mph (175 miles), stop for half an hour as recommended (topping up 80 more miles), drive for another 2.5 hours, and you've done 350 miles before you reach your destination.

Or maybe you should use the train to do the long distance part and hire a car at the far end, certainly what I usually do.

It's not a direct analogy (nor a particularly robust comparison) but I think of the pivots most countries made during WWII. A factory goes from making Ford automobiles to aircraft and back to automobiles within a span of four years. It'll depend completely on how much (or little) the government and facilitate and directly incentivize the needed changes on multiple levels.

Supply will increase with demand. I think by 2030 most gas stations will have EV chargers. It's already a non-issue in the West, not sure what you guys are doing over there. For me, the larger issue is repairability.

I'll bet the infra will be put in place. Charging spots are _much_easier to set up than petrol stations were, the main problem is increasing generation capacity. And thanks to our density, their relatively limited range is less of a burden, even for long-distance drivers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com