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Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

I suppose you'd have been fine if your gas car had a full tank too?

Sure, but I think the point is that EV owners are topping off everyday vs ICE owners don't fill up until they need to (maybe weekly or if it runs low, certainly not daily).

It's harder to ensure a full tank of gas every day than to ensure a full EV charge every day.

Yes it takes more effort to ensure you stop by a gas station on the way home than it is to plug in at night, but still fairly minimal.

My father instilled in to me to never let my tank get below half, in case there are emergencies and I still follow that practice.

Two points:

1. When I switched to an EV as a daily driver, I realized I had underestimated how much time and hassle I was spending at gas stations. When it's been engrained in your psyche as being just part of life, we don't really realize how nasty gas stations are compared to just plugging something in.

2. Another good reason to never let your tank get below half: If you get "bad" gas, you'll only have half a tank of it, diluted with presumably "good" gas. Rare occurrence nowadays, but a benefit nonetheless.

A buddy of mine from the Air Force (I wasn't in AF, he was) told me they never fill above half-full unless you are going long distances. Apparently something to do with MPGs and the weight of fuel.

I never listed to him, but to this day he still only fills his car up half way for better gas mileage. I'm sure it matters if you have a 200 gallon tank, but 60 pounds of fuel will not make a difference in a vehicle that weighs 3000 pounds. Adding a single passenger is going to be more than double that.

I can see it for something with a very large fuel capacity, that doesn't often get driven around motorpool/base unless deployed.

Agreed - it was dumb of him to adopt that in his civvy life, but I couldn't convince him otherwise.

The EPA says that for every 100 pounds of weight carried around by a car, fuel efficiency drops by around 1%.

So if you avoid carrying around 8 gallons of fuel everywhere, you could increase fuel efficiency by around half a percent.

Not a lot of savings.

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.jsp

This is where EVs don’t work so well: you are carrying the entire weight of the battery no matter how much it is charged. Not so important for cars, but for electric planes it is significant.

Regenerative braking negates much of the weight penalty in cars.

You don’t have to. I have 15 gallons of ethanol-free gas I get from the airfield (unleaded) in the garage for filling up the mower, generators, the snowblower, etc. It usually takes about six months to get through it all. I fill up a jug when it goes empty, etc., etc. If it really becomes a problem, I’ve got plenty of gas to get to where someplace has working gas pumps.

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