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Comment by wing-_-nuts | Hacker News Reader

And for those of us in apartments / condos? My HOA were all born in the 40s and think EVs are simply a fad that doesn't need supporting.

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Yep, it’s not going to work for everyone immediately. But it will for the majority, and over time, it will for everyone. As they become more common, the culture will shift and make this resistance seem more and more obviously ridiculous.

What about where you park at work? Or when grocery shopping? There are more options for 240v "slow" chargers than you'd think.

How long does grocery shopping take you? I can do it in under 30 minutes, definitely under an hour. And in that half hour, my car charges… about three miles (@ 3.6kW)? That’s about how far the trip to the grocery store is. 50A 240V (10.8kW) only gets me up to 7.5 miles of charge in a grocery shopping trip.

Thats... extremely pessimistic. I have a VW eGolf, with our 7.6kW home charger it can go from empty - full in 4 hours. It has a 36kWhr battery w/ a range of 150 miles, so in 30 minutes that's on average a little under 19 miles (probably more because you get faster charging at first and slower when closer to full).

But more to the point, how many people have a regular commute, only have street parking at home, and ALSO couldn't be expected to have their employer provide charging at work? Are they doing on-street parking at work as well?

I know a lot of folks in the city who own a car but use it for errands and trips but not commuting. They're the people best served by slower charging at grocery stores, movie theaters, etc. 20 miles isn't a lot but if you're topping up every-time you use the car anyways it adds up or at the least means you only need to use the fast charger once every few months at the most.

Model Ys use something like 250-300 Wh per mile if you’re not at highway speeds, so I think your range estimates might be a bit pessimistic?

But yeah, I wouldn’t count on short grocery store stops to charge my car.

In CA, they aren’t given the option to deny you to install a charger. Easy legislative fix.

So in California I can just dig up the HOA's land without permission to run a wire to my parking space? Or if my HOA has a parking garage I can just start drilling through the walls of the HOA's building to stick a charger in, no permission needed? Surely this can't be how it actually works in CA? I'd like to see a lawyer's take on whether this is an "easy legislative fix."

All the things you mentioned would violate the electric code in most areas. What you can do is ask for permission for a charger to be installed by an electrician. They can't deny this legally.

I agree. We are probably still 3-5 years away from getting solid support within large multi-family dwellings.

The need will become obvious to them once market share approaches 20%.

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