Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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I would disagree with the statement "there's a lot of areas", but I absolutely would advocate pouring more money into DC fast chargers at locations that make sense (grocery stores or similar locations with facilities and are open large swaths of each day). Don't put them at gas stations, that model is dead.

If your EV range is 250-400 miles, and DC fast charging continues to expand rapidly (which it is based on both Tesla and other networks deployment rates), you're paying for and dragging a whole bunch of cells needlessly around (not to mention paying financing/capital costs on that unnecessary equipment). Today, you're never more than 100 miles from a DC fast charger [1] [2] [3] with the caveat being northeastern Montana, the Kansas/Oklahoma border, central Nevada (which could be solved withe a station in Ely), and southeastern New Mexico.

Heck, I can hop into my Model S or Model Y today and drive from Central Florida to Acapulco, Mexico, Prince George, BC, or Quebec/Newfoundland, CA. Range is solved, charging infra is the challenge (which is also why the UK phased out EV subsidies to move towards charging infra financial support [4]).

[1] https://plugshare.com/

[2] https://supercharge.info/map | https://ibb.co/n8x05j7 (100 mile range circles on North America, red is active, blue is planned, cones are under construction)

[3] https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html#/fi... (Uncheck Level 2 from charger selection to scope only to DC Fast charging)

[4] https://cleantechnica.com/2022/06/16/uk-ending-electric-car-...

> Today, you're never more than 100 miles from a DC fast charger ...

As long as your road trip travels from fast charger to fast charger 100 mile separations aren't a problem. But in my state (TX) there are lots of places where the 100 miles to a fast charger are not in the direction I want to travel. I don't want to backtrack even 30 miles south to the a charger in the wrong direction just to recharge so that I can drive the 30 miles north to be back where I started on the trip.

>Today, you're never more than 100 miles from a DC fast charger

This is actually a long distance.

Let's consider where my in-laws live: Abilene, TX. They are 80 miles from a fast charger right now. If I drive an EV to visit them, I have to run a 100 ft cable out their house to slow charge my EV (which, I think is SUPER slow). Or, I can drive 80 miles (each way) to recharge and give myself... 120 miles of range "in town"

If you have a Tesla, there is a Supercharger in the permitting phase a bit east of there (Clyde, TX). If you have a legacy automaker EV, advocate for a non Tesla DC fast charger in town or consider installing a Level 2 charger at your in laws. If we want more infrastructure, we must default to action. I can come to help if you need help installing a L2 charger, or talk to Abilene about their fast DC charging situation. The HEB is the location I’d spec out for an install, with the Mall of Abilene or Market Street grocer a secondary site. There’s also a Walmart that could host an Electrify America CCS Charger.

Be patient as we climb the hockey stick adoption rate. Only recently did Buc-ees agree to Superchargers at every national location, for example.

(my model S gains 48 miles of range per 12 hours on a 16A 120V circuit, which works for situations like you describe, but faster charging everywhere is welcome)

> If you have a Tesla, there is a Supercharger in the permitting phase a bit east of there

If you have a Tesla. There is no value in single brand chargers. It is profoundly dumb infrastructure.

> If you have a legacy automaker EV, advocate for a non Tesla DC fast charger

Always advocate for chargers that charge all brands, especially if you have a Tesla. Anything less is just stupid.

Tesla is the dominate EV automaker in the US. If they’ll pay for the charger, it absolutely makes sense to let them. They’ve got the deep pockets from selling high margin vehicles at scale.

I know, I know, you despise them. Such is life. I don’t swim upstream.

https://electrek.co/2022/03/17/tesla-still-dominates-us-elec...

https://electrek.co/2022/03/10/tesla-tsla-order-rate-surging...

> Tesla is the biggest EV brand in the US by a long shot. About 80% of all electric cars in the country are Tesla vehicles, and unsurprisingly the company is starting to feel an increase in orders from gas price pressure.

> A source familiar with Tesla’s order rate said that the automaker saw it increase 100% this week compared to last in parts of the country particularly affected by gas prices.

> If they’ll pay for the charger, it absolutely makes sense to let them.

Not if you want to build industry and infrastucture. Lack of direction and fractured infrastructure is part of the reason why America's EV market is only one third the size of Europe's.

> I know, I know, you despise them.

Then you know nothing. It's funny how you have to resort to emotion rather than addressing the obviously worse situation of single brand chargers and the obviously better outcome of infrastructure than can charge all EVs regardless of brand.

We just value different outcomes, that’s all. You’re emotionally invested in diversity of ecosystem, and if everything sold is a Tesla, I’m fine with that. Legacy automakers have had years to get their act together, to build charging networks, to deliver on electric mobility, and even now they’re just making a half hearted attempt. If you want better outcomes, build better companies. It’s not Tesla’s fault legacy automakers absolve themselves of innovation and speed. They could swing for the fences too if they wanted to, but that is their choice to make.

There’s a reason Teslas sell well: make something people want and they will buy it. GM is discounting their Bolts by $6k and can’t give them away.

> We just value different outcomes, that’s all.

Ah, so now you've changed your tune. It's no longer that I despise Tesla, it's just that we value different outcomes.

Your vacillation is boring and dishonest. You should try harder to keep your story straight.

The simple fact of the matter is that if you take an EV for a long road trip across America today, your choice of route will be very dependent on where charging stations exist. With an ICE vehicle, it's barely a consideration. For the few areas where you know you'll be too far from a gas station the solution is simple: A cheap gas can or two filled with fuel. What's the reasonable and cost effective equivalent for an EV?

The other issue is that even a fast charger takes considerably longer than a gas pump to refill your car. This, coupled with the relatively low availability of them overall, means that you are more likely to have to wait in line for your turn and you spend even more time not on the road traveling to your destination.

With all this being said, I think an EV is very compelling as a secondary vehicle for 90%+ of use cases so long as you also have an ICE vehicle and a sufficient way to charge your EV at home.

> an EV is very compelling as a secondary vehicle

This is a strange way to think about it. Our secondary vehicle has a huge gas tank and other things we need rarely. Our primary vehicle has what we need day to day, just enough seats for the family and space for groceries.

I meant secondary as in a second vehicle so as long as you own an ICE vehicle already. I’m sure if I had an EV it would absolutely get the most usage of the 2. If I dropped $35-50,000 on a car you bet I’d drive it a lot! :)

People may continue to pay for $4-5/gallon gas if they so choose. It is a free country, after all. Gas prices will not go back down so long as refinery capacity is constrained [1] [2] [3] (which it will be in perpetuity, as investment will not flow to it with fossil fuel phase outs in progress, and refinery lifecycles are measured in decades). Let the free hand of the market do its thing. People will figure it out [4], pricing signals and all that jazz [5].

You can lead a horse to water but drowning it does no good. Let it drink when it is sufficiently thirsty. Maybe gas prices prices have to go even higher, who knows! I am morbidly curious to see.

[1] https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight...

[2] https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_operable_crude_oil_distill...

[3] https://www.marketplace.org/2022/05/23/u-s-oil-refiners-marg...

[4] https://electrek.co/2022/03/25/tesla-models-sold-out-2023-pr...

[5] https://electrek.co/2022/03/22/electric-cars-3-to-6-times-ch...

The best thing that can come from $5 gas is marginalization of people, such as yourself, who think that $5 gas, or any other high cost that broadly effects the entire economy and robs people of purchasing power is in any way good.

People don't are about where their energy comes from, what size cages the chickens that lay their eggs live in, how their plastic gets recycled, etc, etc, until they are economically comfortable enough to do so. $5 gas is shortsighted and counterproductive.

For all the low effort quipping about the virtues EV adoption $5 gas is going to make a hell of a lot of people dust off ye olde wood stove this winter and engage in all sorts of other behavior that is not good for the environment but helps them preserve their standard of living.

Spoken by someone with enough money to have owned multiple Tesla's IIRC.

The comment was focused on those who can afford an EV but choose not to get one, not those who cannot afford one. Nuance. Consider it in the context of the comment above it, complaining that it takes a bit longer to charge than fueling a combustion vehicle. Citation 5 in my above comment even shows EVs to be 3-6 times cheaper to operate.

We want to help the poor; enact a carbon tax and rebate scheme. Let wealthy carbon consumers buy low income folks EVs. They are unable to afford them on their own.

I have a great deal of compassion for genuine hardship. I do not have compassion for voluntary suboptimal economic decisions by people of means out of a minimal amount of convenience sacrificed.

> I do not have compassion for voluntary suboptimal economic decisions by people of means out of a minimal amount of convenience sacrificed

No, you have a lot of compassion for suboptimal economic decisions.

For example, you advocate for charging infrastructure that only charges one brand of EV even though that is clearly a suboptimal economic decision that builds dumb infrastructure with less utility.

Worse than that, you mock the low price of the Chevy Bolt even though it's a good hatchback with decent range for an EV.

If you genuinely want to help the poor then you want to advocate for infrastructure that can charge all EVs regardless of brand. That way when people eventually buy one of the low price EVs of the world it can be charged just as easily as a high priced EV.

Common infrastructure helps everyone, rich and poor alike. Brand exclusive infrastructure helps only the few.

> I have a great deal of compassion for genuine hardship.

The rapid increase in gas prices is causing a lot of genuine hardship. Not to mention the follow on effects of higher consumer prices for essentials like food.

That’s a very “let them eat cake” attitude that doesn’t serve anyone well. EVs are simply not an option for the majority of people in the world until their cost decreases and their range increases.

Fossil fuels need to be phased out but forcing gas prices up this fast is a very cruel way to do it.

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