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Comment by chrisco255 | Hacker News Reader

Unless they improve the recharge speed or dramatically improve thr power density, we're gonna have ICEs for a long time. Electric vehicles are not good in cold weather, they so far have not proven themselves to be capable of long haul towing (battery life drops off precipitously while towing), there is not enough charging ports or parking spots for hundreds of millions of cars to recharge, emergency vehicles cannot depend on EV (you can't wait for an ambulance to recharge for 45 minutes). Also, power grid constraints. California recently asked electric car owners to not charge at certain times of the day. This, in spite of the fact that electric cars are still in single digit percentages of ownership. This is unacceptable and it's very clear the grid is not ready to support it.

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>Electric vehicles are not good in cold weather,

The country with highest share of EV is… Norway. And by a huge margin.

https://alternative-fuels-observatory.ec.europa.eu/transport...

I think you're wrong.

https://insideevs.com/news/556375/electric-car-winter-range-...

EVs lose 15-40% of their range in cold weather.

> emergency vehicles cannot depend on EV (you can't wait for an ambulance to recharge for 45 minutes)

That seems pretty irrelevant? It's not like you have only one ambulance.

In remote areas of the US you very well could have only one ambulance.

In the extremely contrived example where two calls come in back to back from locations that are 400 miles apart, the need to charge an EV in the middle of driving for 6 hours straight is going to be a pretty minor factor.

Lol maybe take a look at Canada where towns are 100km apart and an ambulance can potentially be driving constantly on an 8 hour shift. Not to mention the Fact they have huge alternators on them to power all the medical stuff.

And what if it breaks? You can't really have only one ambulance either way.

But even then, OK, you could argue that in some specific scenarios you need an ICE ambulance. That does not mean that ambulances can't be EV.

> California recently asked electric car owners to not charge at certain times of the day.

California asked its residents to save electricity (so, among other things, not charge cars) between 4 and 9 pm - during the evening peak.

That's not when most people charge their EVs.

This has been sensationalized by some media outlets.

>there is not enough charging ports or parking spots for hundreds of millions of cars to recharge

Most people drive so little, they could recharge once a week. And I doubt they couldn't do it neither at home, nor the office, nor the supermarket, nor anywhere else.

Stores will do everything to have people charge at their parking. Remember when hotels made people pay for Wifi? I do.

Norway says hello.

Norway is small (1700km N->S, but a fraction of that E->W.) One can drive it's entire length in a day or two. It is barely half the size of Texas. Nor is Norway very cold. Because it is so close to the sea, temperatures rarely drop below -10c.

>> Unless they improve the recharge speed or dramatically improve thr power density

That may be the doomsday scenario. Imagine we had a new battery tech today that could cram 1000+miles into a car in say 5 minutes. EV sales would spike. ICEs would disappear. Then everyone would get their new EV home ... and the national electricity grid would collapse.

speaking of doomsday, I can stock up on fuel with reasonable effort (storage tank, fuel stabilizer). But you can't easily build your own battery farm

You can relatively easily install solar panels/batteries, and they even pay for themselves while we await doomsday.

Interesting perspective. Another view: solar panels on your roof, using your car battery for your house nighttime needs means that during doomsday your energy intensive lifestyle doesn't have to change at all.

Ah yes, the roof of my building where I'm on a middle floor. I'll start lobbying the board to install solar for just me to use.

The problem with a lot of this is that the more "responsible" you're already living, the less reasonable the next "responsible" thing is to do. Going solar/off grid is only really possible if you live on a lot of land where you're the only resident, which is otherwise generally not recommended. If you live in dense housing, you probably don't have solar, let alone a way to charge an EV. I park my current car 100-500 feet from the nearest outlet that I own. There's essentially no world I could buy an EV and not have to charge it for hours outside of my home.

The efficient future is here, but it's for the rich who did all the garbage NIMBY stuff that made it necessary for everyone else to have to live "efficiently" to make up for their gluttonous use of land/power over the past decades.

> if you live on a lot of land where you're the only resident, which is otherwise generally not recommended

By whom? In my case, I am not the only resident, I have a large family on our acreage.

To reply to the GP’s point here … if you live in apartment you also aren’t stockpiling Jerry cans of gs, either.

You sure can keep a couple on your vehicle

A couple jerry cans in your vehicle is hardly a "stockpile." And also not a great idea.

It’s enough to get you 50-100% of your range. And it is a great idea on long trips or off-roading (and can sometimes be required)

It is dangerous to assume that everyone lives in a house with a roof, or that they are free to reconfigure thier home's electrical systems. I certainly cannot.

Well if you live in an apartment complex, I'm pretty sure storing large amounts of gasoline in your apartment isn't allowed either, so there's not a difference.

I keep a jerry fan on the back of my truck in the parking garage.

a what?

Jerry can*

Preppers are apparently really into adding solar panels to the top of golf carts these days.

It's not like everyone who drives an EV recharges their full battery capacity every day. And besides, home charges are typically level-2 charging from a 220V outlet, and they charge overnight. DC fast charging in homes basically doesn't exist, because the expense of the electrical service you'd need to do that doesn't make sense unless you're putting the fast charger somewhere where it will be heavily used.

Grid upgrades are a thing that's going to have to happen, but I think the concern is kind of overblown. It's not like everyone is going to switch to EVs at the same time, and over the course of a decade or two the utilities can use the increased revenue they're collecting to upgrade their infrastructure as needed.

We're going to need more electricity production to offset the increased demand. Some of that might be offset by residential solar.

Power density and recharge speed has been increasing steadily for decades.

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